Section 4 Part 20: One Day on a Saturday (2011) comprises material originating from the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay.
The viewer sees details of images from the ‘Letters To Omar’ series. These were cards and letters sent from around the world to one man during six years of incarceration. Every aspect of this man’s life was controlled by his interrogator, including when, if and in what form he received his mail. Everything he was sent was transformed and degraded by a process of scanning, redaction, archiving and stamping. Original cards and letters became abstracted copies, complicit in the process of control exercised over the recipient. These are images created by Guantanamo.
Two voices are heard in stereo, layered one on another, as the images pass.
An American female voice reads from the Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures Manual, a minutely detailed set of instructions and messages for camp personnel leaked by Wikileaks. The extracts range from techniques of disorientation and shackling to the public relations messages to disseminate about Guantanamo.
An Arab male voice reads extracts of testimony about one detainee’s experience with a female interrogator. This was apparently given to a lawyer while he was still in Camp Delta.
The full film is 7 minutes 37 seconds long and intended as an installation space. Please contact the artist for access to the full cut.
Produced in collaboration with multimedia editor Anna Stevens.