As a socially-engaged artist, my work usually examines the often coded and powerful socio-political trajectories that run through our daily lives.
My approach is both process oriented and multidisciplinary, producing images, videos, interventions and site-specific installations. Behind my work is an examination of the different kinds of documents utilised in today's world. Documents can be of an official, political, social, historical or personal nature and I use them as a point of departure for most of my projects in an attempt to explore the domains they exist within and the spaces in between these domains. The document, as I see it, can be an image, a text, an event, or even a space. Through my use of video, stills and different types of images, I try to raise questions concerning the functional dimension of the image itself, which is a central question in my artistic strategy.
The mechanisms of identity formulation, and the relation between 'the self' and social discourse, plays an important role in my artistic outlook and drives me to explore new areas of socio-political existence. I'm interested in delving into the gender-based politics that control and categorise the public as people and the spaces they move and exist in, whether public or private.
The position and the identity of the contemporary artist and his/her role in relation to 'the system', political framework of a country and how this effects the artist's formulation in the international scene, is of major concern to me and is often reflected in my projects.
Recently, I have been busy with studying and producing projects around the politics of identity formation in virtual environments and networking systems. For example, I am interested in Cyberspace as an alternative and seemingly liberal space where relationships of all kinds can flourish ‘virtually' in material ‘real-life' situations that would condition them very differently. My most recent project, MKMAEL, focuses on a discursive analysis of this last phenomenon.
Mahmoud Khaled
20 September 2007, Alexandria