The GIANT Open Call 2023

ONLINE GALLERY

Video works below were selected to be part of the GIANT Open Call 2023.

Saba Khatami

Birthday Hat

A Conversation About Home intertwines a narrative of personal experiences of growing up in Scunthorpe and urban legends of black dogs that reside within my hometown. It focuses on the disenfranchisement of young people and coming away from that space and reflecting on the issues that reside there. Shot with Hi-8 Tape.

This land is Bliss’ explores themes of land ownership. Not only in the real world but virtually too. With online environments such as the Metaverse emerging, we should question what land ownership is becoming and peoples’ accessibility to it - does this owned land transform in a digital context? Inspiration was taken from the highly-recognisable image ‘Bliss’ captured by Charles O’Rear, which made a home for itself on the screensavers of Microsoft Windows XP users. What is interesting about such a widely distributed representation of digital land is that users form a connection to and ownership of the landscape much like how humans might in reality on the land they roam. However, it can never truly be theirs. Can this idea of ephemeral, digital landownership teach us more about our attitudes towards the land we tread upon?