Ruba Al Sweel

FIRST PHONE 

A film developed by Ruba Al-Sweel followed by remarks. What is it like to experience living through climate change and geopolitical unrest from the specific vantage point of the screen? Of platform capitalism and algorithms? As NPCs during epoch-making events, how do we make sense out of the apophenic experience of scrolling? Tragedy is indifferent to geography. This video-essay employs a compact metalanguage that responds to the current threat of extinction. Narrated by a disarticulate AI egregore, FIRST PHONE plays like a more-than-human stream of consciousness, laying in sharp relief a reality that decenters humans in its imaginary. Text operates as image, metaphor as truth, and rhetoric as more than mere adornment. The video draws parallels between the indifferent machine and Red Sea hostilities of political and ecological nature.

Ruba Al-Sweel is an independent writer and artist focused on media theory and networked communications.