Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts

Haig Aivazian talks about counter-propaganda, sports, blackouts, Palestine, fugitivity and what he calls “the dumping grounds of democracy” in the new podcast from Ràdio Web MACBA, co-produced by BEK.

“You don’t counter fake news with real facts. You counter fake news with some sly counter-propaganda. Things that resonate, that motivate, that energise, that fight off this thing. (…) It’s not propaganda as in fabricating lies. I want to make things compelling. And I want to make things felt, more than known.” – Haig Aivazian.

Listen to the podcast here.

To say that Haig Aivazian’s (b. 1980, Beirut) work addresses notions such as duress, capture, resistance and fugitivity is simply to state the obvious considering the basic facts of his biography. Born in Beirut in 1980, Haig was raised amidst the Lebanese Civil War and forced into exile before turning 10.

Through media such as lectures, performance, video, drawing, installation, and sculpture, Haig’s multifaceted works intricately blend the personal and the geopolitical as well as micro and macro narratives. They uncover or perhaps even fabricate complex threads, timelines and visual networks with multiple layers of meaning and ambiguity. His stories are intended to puzzle, reveal intangible connections, and evoke a sense of ghostly friction among conflicting ideas. Since 2009, the duality of light and darkness has been one of the recurring themes that Aivazian examines through various lenses—from the symbolic and metaphorical, to the harsh reality of armed conflict, as well as urban planning and the many ways in which states exercise their power.

The interview for the podcast was recorded in Bergen during the symposium “The Only Lasting Truth is Change: Hallucinating, Computing, Collapsing”, where Aivazian participated with a conversation “The Whole Entire World is Colonised, Only We Are Free” on 17 November 2023. 

Ràdio Web MACBA is a non-profit, cultural communication radiophonic project based at MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona. Operating since 2006, it was the first podcasting project run by an art institution in Spain. Since then, it has engaged in open dialogue with some of the most significant international actors in the field, operating at the intersection of art, radiophonic practices, and experimental music.

Co-produced between Ràdio Web MACBA and BEK – Bergen senter for elektronisk kunst.  
Conversation: Roc Jiménez de Cisneros and Anna Ramos.
Script and sound production: Roc Jiménez de Cisneros.
Voice over: Javiera Cadiz.
Sounds: RWM Working Group, sounds from the Willem Twee Studios library, in Den Bosch.
Photo: Myriam Boulos.

This podcast is part of New Perspectives for Action. A project by Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the European Union.