The Visiting Artist Series hosted Hasan Elahi, an interdisciplinary artist and associate professor of art at the University of Maryland, in Lord Hall on Thursday, March 21.
In June 2002, Elahi was accused of terrorist activities, after he returned to the U.S. from a trip abroad. The Immigration and Naturalization Service took him in for questioning, and an FBI agent asked him about his whereabouts and what he had been doing. The FBI agent asked where Elahi was on Sept. 12 of the previous year. Elahi pulled out his palm pilot and showed the agent his schedule for that day and the days prior. Despite the fact that Elahi was deemed a non-threat, he was not given clearance. He is still required to check in periodically with the FBI, particularly when traveling.
In response to this incident, Elahi created a tracking program to show where he would be at any given moment. In addition, Elahi takes photographs of the airports he’s been in, the bathrooms he’s used, the hotel beds he’s slept in and the meals he’s eaten, all made available to the government and the public. By making his information easy to access, he believes it becomes worthless.
Elahi doesn’t see this as an infringement on his privacy, however.
“I’m telling you everything, but I’m giving you very little personal information,” he said.
These everyday photos are the basis for many of his artistic works. One piece, titled “Citizen,” is made up of these photos. Elahi explained that his inspiration came from the military’s camouflage and how it’s changed based on what the soldiers need to blend in to. In the past, it’s been the jungle. Today, soldiers need to blend in with night vision — “the machinery,” as Elahi put it. In response to this need, camouflage is very pixelated. Elahi blew up an image of the current camouflage and replaced the blocks with some photographs of the meals he’s eaten.
Another piece inspired by the U.S. government and military is “Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2006.” The piece was exhibited in the Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial in the city Gijón in northern Spain. Elahi showed the audience a map with an “x” marked for each of the approximately 330 times the U.S. invaded another country without permission. With that in mind, he took a sheet of polycarbonate with a map of the world lightly outlined. Elahi then had a shooter from the Olympic Society of Shooting in Gijón fire 330 bullets into the exact locations of these invasions. Rather than going through the sheet, the bullets were caught inside as the polycarbonate melted over them.
Elahi is the Director of Digital Cultures and Creativity in the Honors College at the University of Maryland. His work has been exhibited at a variety of places, including the Sundance Film Festival, Kassel Kulturbahnhof and Centre Georges Pompidou. In addition to receiving awards and grants, Elahi’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Wired, CNN, NPR, CBS, ABC and he’s been interviewed by Al Jazeera, Fox News and Stephen Colbert from “The Colbert Report.”
The Visiting Artist Series represents artists from a wide range of backgrounds and is free to the public. The next artists featured are Erin Manning on March 26, Patsy Baudoin, John Bell and Nick Montfort on April 9 and Sin Najafi on April 30.