CAMARADERIE. 2009

DVD – 10.30 min - color, sound, loop. ‘found videos and texts on YouTube’.                 

This work is based on videos I found on YouTube, showing Egyptian professional bodybuilders in different situations while exercising or rehearsing before posing in local and international competitions, as well as other videos showing amateur young men from Cairo, interested in this type of sport, which quickly affects and changes the shape of their bodies. The quality and production style of these videos range from institutional to personal, professional, and home-made video quality, but all of them celebrate and represent the masculine body in different ways. The research and work process on this material reminded me of some other audio and textual material related to certain personal memories of objects and situations, like the end of the continuous image broadcast on official Egyptian Television, accompanied by the national anthem, the same tune which is always being played when the bodybuilders officially represent their country on stage. By using techniques of adding and cropping, the work tries to understand the representative power of the self and the masculine body, in its many variations from the official to the popular, ethical, personal, and erotic.

 "Connecting the intense and charged world of popular bodybuilding in Egypt with the artist's attempt at understanding the modes of self-representation in such a context makes this investigation of male bonding and the camera especially evocative. Mahmoud Khaled manages once again to be both visceral and cerebral at the same time." Hassan Khan 

Stills:

Installation shots, Institute Du Monde Arab, Paris, France, 2012.