Check this out; it’s extremely neat.
It’s based on photographs taken on November 22, the third day of the massive state violence that beset Cairo for a week, and left more than forty dead and dozens more injured, many blind. It captures something of the giddiness of being in a huge crowd, and — with its vertiginously swooping perspectives — something of the suppressed terror of being under siege.
It’s about seeing. And its multiple viewpoints, so swiftly merging and changing, can’t help reminding one of those who left the week with an eye sacrificed to the State. I don’t imagine the artist was thinking of that when he created a synoptic view. But it’s almost a manifesto of revenge. We keep seeing, we keep imagining against all odds. It’s the state that’s blind.
Odin rode to the well to ask the old witch: How can I fight the dragon and win? The witch told him: I’ll give you the secret, but first you have to pluck one eye out and toss it down the well. Odin hesitated, but in a swift gesture he clawed his eye from his socket. It made a small plash at the bottom of the well. Now: what is the secret? he demanded of the witch. Her grating voice whispered: Watch with both eyes.
