Basim Magdy
born 1977 in Egypt,
lives and works in Basel and Cairo.
Magdy’s practice is based on various media - from traditional painting and photography techniques to experiments with sound, film and text. Replete with absurdity and humour, his works often return to futuristic themes and function as scenarios for the future that stem from a critical reflection of the present.
The presented collection consists of 80 slides taken in the barren volcanic landscape of Lanzarote, Canary Islands. The slides went through an elaborate process in which they had to tolerate various chemical substances that are not intended for film processing. Magdy exposed different film stocks to several liquids found at home which allowed him a wide range of experimentation for blurring the images, a calculated loss of details, making a selected colour dominate in the composition, and leaving clearly visible streaks and patches on the photographic image.
As with many other projects by Basim Magdy, in this work the border between fiction and reality, the present and the future, is subject to negotiation. The apocalyptic landscapes are situated beyond any particular temporal and spatial order. They offer themselves as a record of a possible phantom memory of the future.
