Research project
ARCHIVES OF THE FUTURE
Summary of the research project
This research focuses on science fiction in the literature, cinema and visual and contemporary arts of Arab countries around the Mediterranean. This includes theoretical research on gender in general, produced by the social sciences, new technologies and philosophy in recent years, in order to understand the specificity of gender in these countries. Today, science fiction is an exciting place for artistic productions and exciting theoretical research on the realities and challenges of our societies. By gathering literary, visual, film and sound archives around the science fiction of Arab countries around the Mediterranean, I seek an innovative conceptual, formal and aesthetic approach to deal with the subject. This could produce a public reading-performance, a short film, a scenario, or even an exhibition project on the subject in a museum space.
Biography
Born in Beirut Lebanon, Rania Stephan studied film in Australia and France. Her professional career is rich and varied, working as a first assistant with renowned directors (Elia Suleiman, Simone Bitton), as well as camera and editor on feature films with documentary filmmakers and social science researchers. Artist and director, her films navigate between video art and creative documentary. The work on the archive is central to her artistic approach. She explores both still and moving images. Through editing, her tool of work and reflection, she mixes different registers of images and combines research on the archaeology of the image, identity and memory, to explore a diversity of meanings and renew narration and emotion.
