News archive

In 2022, Ricardo Mbarkho gave a lecture at the international colloquium on invisual art “Doxa et Paradoxe” (Colloque international art invisuel : Doxa et Paradoxe), held in the Amphithéâtre Guizot of Sorbonne Université, Paris.

His lecture addressed how the economic model proposed by invisual art is an alternative organizational dynamic, operating outside the traditional models that still threaten the world with economic wars.

Ricardo Mbarkho published the article “What is at stake in the interaction between media arts and cultural industries in Lebanon” in Leonardo (MIT Press), 2021, doi:10.1162/leon_a_02098.

Ricardo Mbarkho came across a bug in the war game Galaxy Attack that recalled Cory Arcangel’s work “Super Mario Clouds”: almost everything in the game interface disappeared except for endlessly scrolling clouds.

According to him, it was not the first time: for mysterious reasons, each time he questioned what lies beyond the profit-driven, capitalist aspect of a game, an “error” or an “accident” occurred and turned the game into a poetic and experimental experience. This had already happened with Hungry Shark Evolution.

Two videos by Ricardo Mbarkho were screened online in the Jury Section of the International Film Festival Bosnia Herzegovina Looks Around (IFFBHLA), from December 18 to 19, 2020.

Ricardo Mbarkho was a member of the jury of the International Film Festival Bosnia Herzegovina Looks Around (IFFBHLA), held in Paris in 2020, and watched the films in that capacity.

In 2020, L’Orient-Le Jour published a piece entitled “Le taboulé à la sauce nationale” (Tabbouleh, national style).

Digital images by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by ART UpCLOSE at the Monaco Yacht Show, Monte Carlo, Monaco, from September 25 to 28, 2019.

Digital images by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by ART UpCLOSE at Artexpo New York, New York, USA, from April 4 to 7, 2019.

Digital images by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by ART UpCLOSE at the Architectural Digest Design Show, New York, USA, from March 21 to 24, 2019.

Digital images by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by ART UpCLOSE at the Los Angeles Art Show, Los Angeles, USA, from January 19 to 23, 2019.

Digital images by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by ART UpCLOSE at Red Dot Miami, Miami, USA, from December 5 to 9, 2018.

Digital images by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by ART UpCLOSE at the Monaco Yacht Show, Monte Carlo, Monaco, from September 26 to 29, 2018.

In 2018, Ricardo Mbarkho was listed in Art in America.

Digital images by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by ART UpCLOSE at Artexpo New York, New York, USA, from April 19 to 22, 2018.

Digital images by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by ART UpCLOSE at the Architectural Digest Design Show, New York, USA, from March 22 to 25, 2018.

On November 8, 2017, Ricardo Mbarkho spoke about the Lebanese art scene at the study day “Arts et politique culturelle dans le sud méditerranéen. Consistance et consolidation d’une demande sociale” (Arts and cultural policy in the southern Mediterranean: consistency and consolidation of a social demand), led by Célia Hassani, Catherine Miller and Gilles Suzanne at Aix-Marseille Université, France.

Works by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by Mark Hachem Gallery at Beirut Art Fair, Beirut, Lebanon, from September 21 to 24, 2017.

In 2017, the book Chroniques Alexandrie – Aix Marseille was published, on the artistic and educational cooperation between Alexandria and Aix-Marseille. Ricardo Mbarkho is one of the participants in this cooperation.

On September 7 and 8, 2017, Ricardo Mbarkho represented ALBA (Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts, University of Balamand, Beirut) at the ANdEA summer seminar in Strasbourg, France, entitled “A New Europe for a New World: Art Schools in Globalisation”. The seminar focused on international mobility and exchange agreements between art schools.

Digital images by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by ART UpCLOSE at the Monaco Yacht Show (MYS), Monte Carlo, Monaco, from September 27 to 30, 2017.

Digital images by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by ART UpCLOSE at Artexpo New York, New York, USA, from April 21 to 24, 2017.

Digital images by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by ART UpCLOSE at the Architectural Digest Design Show, Piers 92–94, Manhattan, New York, USA, from March 16 to 19, 2017.

Digital images by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by ART UpCLOSE at the Spectrum Miami art show, held during Art Basel in Miami Beach, USA, from November 30 to December 4, 2016.

Ricardo Mbarkho gave a lecture on invisual art at Acta Media 12, the multidisciplinary colloquium “Le Projet Méta-auctorat”, held in Paris from October 11 to 14, 2016.

The colloquium was organized by Colabor, the research center for digital languages of the University of São Paulo, in partnership with the Institut des hautes études en arts plastiques (IHEAP) and the Maison du Brésil, Paris.

Ricardo Mbarkho’s work “The Cairo Agreement. November 3, 1969” (2008, pigmented print on photo paper, 55.702 × 55.702 cm, unique piece) was shown at MAT – Mouvement Art Technology, an exhibition and auction organised by Blancs-Manteaux Auction and curated by Franck Ancel, at 19 Côté Cour, Paris, France. The public exhibition took place on June 18 and 19, 2016, and the auction on June 19, 2016.

The work is a digital image based on the Cairo Agreement signed by the Lebanese State on November 3, 1969. The artist made the computer read the file containing the text of the agreement as if it were an image file; the binary code of the text file generated the corresponding image.

Digital images by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by ART UpCLOSE at Artexpo New York, Pier 94, New York, USA, from April 14 to 17, 2016.

Digital images by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by ART UpCLOSE at the Architectural Digest Design Show, New York, USA, from March 17 to 20, 2016.

On March 16 and 17, 2016, A.M.I. and the Roberto Cimetta Fund organised a joint conference in partnership with the Villa Méditerranée in Marseille, France.

On March 17, 2016, Ricardo Mbarkho gave a lecture on socio-economic models of creativity and democracy.

On December 18, 2015, Ricardo Mbarkho gave a lecture via Skype from Lebanon entitled “L’utilisation de l’espace social et politique comme support d’une pratique artistique” (Using social and political space as a medium for artistic practice), for the Institut des hautes études en arts plastiques (IHEAP), at the Jeu de Paume, Paris, France.

Digital images by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by ART UpCLOSE at the art fair Spectrum Miami, Miami, USA, from December 2 to 6, 2015.

Ricardo Mbarkho published the article “Pour une double définition des relations entre création médiatique et industries culturelles” in the journal Al Hikma, 3rd period, 8th year, no. 14, October 2015, Lebanon.

On September 24, 2015, Ricardo Mbarkho gave a lecture via Skype from Lebanon entitled “The Lebanese National Tabbouleh Day”, as part of a programme of IHEAP (New York) held at the Ashok Jain Gallery, New York.

Ricardo Mbarkho took part in the “Arab Collective Art Exhibition” at Mark Hachem Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon, from August 13 to September 16, 2015.

Digital images by Ricardo Mbarkho were exhibited by ART UpCLOSE at Artexpo New York, Pier 94, New York, from April 23 to 26, 2015.

The online work “Grading the Lebanese Constitution” by Ricardo Mbarkho was mentioned in the book Liban, carrefour d’échanges culturels, co-published by Shams and Transversité in 2015.

Digital images by Ricardo Mbarkho were exhibited by ART UpCLOSE at the Architectural Digest Design Show, New York, from March 19 to 22, 2015.

The Lebanese National Tabbouleh Day was featured in Positive Lebanon, published by Tamyras in 2014. The publisher presented this book of nearly 400 pages as a tribute to Lebanese civil society, devoted to NGOs, associations, artists and authors who see Lebanon in a positive light.

On November 29, 2014, Ricardo Mbarkho represented the School of Visual Arts of ALBA (Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts), University of Balamand, Beirut, at the Journée des écoles supérieures d’art de Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur et Monaco, a day devoted to the art schools of the region and Monaco, held at the Villa Méditerranée in Marseille.

On December 5, 2014, Ricardo Mbarkho gave the lecture “Enjeux de l’art numérique : histoire et nouvelle esthétique” (Issues of digital art: history and new aesthetics) as part of the international colloquium “Penser le numérique” (Thinking the digital), at the Institut d’études scéniques, audiovisuelles et cinématographiques, Saint-Joseph University, Beirut.

Prints of digital images by Ricardo Mbarkho were exhibited by ART UpCLOSE at Spectrum Miami (Contemporary Art Network booth), Miami, United States, in late 2014.

In a podcast published on Creative Disturbance, Claudine Dussollier, Abdo Nawar and Ricardo Mbarkho presented their forthcoming book and the RAMI platform (International Encounters on Arts and Multimedia), which had for about ten years been developing international exchange projects in North Africa and the Mediterranean region.

A page devoted to Ricardo Mbarkho was published on Creative Disturbance, which describes itself as “an international, multilingual platform that provides a unique virtual environment for the intellectually curious across the globe to meet, network, collaborate, create, and socialize.”

The online work “CONNECTED” by Ricardo Mbarkho was exhibited at X-perimental III (2014), at The Venue Gallery, Beirut Souks, from May 19 to 29, 2014. The exhibition then moved to the Faculty of Architecture and Design of Al-Manar University of Tripoli, Abou Samra, from June 2 to 4, 2014.

“Grading the Lebanese Constitution” by Ricardo Mbarkho was shown in a group exhibition at the Sunflower (Dawar el Shams), Beirut, from March 3 to 5, 2014.

“Grading the Lebanese Constitution” is a web-based project in which anyone, not only the Lebanese, can anonymously grade each article of the current Lebanese Constitution. An overall average grade is constantly displayed and updated. The statistical results, in figures and graphs, can be read in different ways, offering multiple levels of analysis of emotional and rational attitudes toward the Constitution.

Work by Ricardo Mbarkho was screened on October 16, 2013 in the program “videoART: Stop and Motion”, curated by Gabriele Leidloff, at Loft Art, pl. Żołnierza Polskiego 5, Poland.

Ricardo Mbarkho published the chapter “Trauma Stimulated Art, or the Embodiment of Affect in Lebanon: An Allegory” in the book Traumatic Affect (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013).

Works by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by Mark Hachem Gallery at the 2013 edition of Beirut Art Fair, Beirut.

An image by Ricardo Mbarkho was used on the cover of L’industrialisation des biens symboliques by Bernard Miège, Philippe Bouquillion and Pierre Mœglin, published by PUG (Presses universitaires de Grenoble).

Works by Ricardo Mbarkho were exhibited at Art Paris Art Fair, held at the Grand Palais in Paris from March 28 to April 1, 2013 (artist page on the fair’s website).

Ricardo Mbarkho was among the some fifty participants in issue 69 of the magazine MCD, “Net art – WJ-Spots #2: Les artistes s’emparent du réseau / Artists take over the network”, published in December 2012.

On October 30 and 31, 2012, Shams organized in Beirut two round tables “under the sign of Averroes” on the theme “Culture of revolution, revolution of cultures”, on the sidelines of the Salon du livre francophone de Beyrouth. They were a prelude to the creation of the “Multaka Ibn Rochd”, a Lebanese edition of the Rencontres d’Averroès focused on the artistic and cultural issues of the Mediterranean world.

Ricardo Mbarkho, artist, researcher and teacher in Lebanon and member of the YASMIN network, spoke at the first round table, “Artists and the digital revolution”, on October 30, moderated by Claudine Dussollier, with Claire Duport, Marc Mercier (Les Instants Vidéo) and Georges Dorlian (University of Balamand). The second round table, on October 31, addressed the Arab Spring.

RAMI 3.0 (International Encounters on Arts and Multimedia) took place in Beirut from October 22 to November 2, 2012.

As part of it, Claire Duport and Ricardo Mbarkho led the seminar “Political art, art and politics” on October 26 and 31 and November 2, 2012. Starting from theoretical notions and an analysis of digital works, they examined the definition of political art, the links between art and politics, and the aesthetic and ethical scope of political art, through the thought of Bruno Latour for Claire Duport and through his own digital work for Ricardo Mbarkho. Their exchange was followed by discussions with students at several universities.

As part of RAMI 3.0 (International Encounters on Arts and Multimedia), devoted to digital arts in Lebanon “at the crossroads of visual art, video art, the performing arts and the arts in public space”, a professional encounter was held at AltCity, Hamra, Beirut, on October 27, 2012. It brought together artists, activists, programmers and managers of cultural organizations around the development of artistic and technological projects.

Ricardo Mbarkho took part alongside Marc Mercier (Les Instants Vidéo), Claire Duport, Claudine Dussollier, Abdo Nawar (Shams) and guests from Egypt, Japan and Lebanon. The discussions covered the Medialab experience at AltCity, the development of digital art in Lebanon, and video art fifty years after its birth.

Ricardo Mbarkho took part in the group exhibition Visual Art Forum III, organized by LAAPS at the UNESCO Palace in Beirut from October 31 to November 6, 2012.

The online work “CONNECTED” by Ricardo Mbarkho was analyzed in Ontology of the media, a book by Prof. Mario Costa, released in Milan in the autumn of 2012 and then in the rest of Italy (preview on postmediabooks.it).

The digital images of Ricardo Mbarkho were exhibited at CAC.3 – PostDigital Art (Computer Art Congress 3), a program of conferences, workshops, exhibitions and performances held at the 104 (104.fr) in Paris from November 26 to 28, 2012.

Ricardo Mbarkho presented his solo exhibition “Fine Pixels” at Mark Hachem Gallery, Mina el Hosn, Beirut Central District, from May 15 to 29, 2012.

The net art work “Grading the Lebanese Constitution” (2011, dastooronline.com) by Ricardo Mbarkho was exhibited at X-Perimental X-Hibition (XX), from April 25 to May 2, 2012, in the gallery spaces of Istoria and Maqam, Saifi Village, Beirut.

“Grading the Lebanese Constitution” is a web-based project in which anyone can anonymously grade each article of the current Lebanese Constitution. An overall average grade is constantly displayed and updated. This mass evaluation allows the statistical results, in figures and graphs, to be read in different ways, offering multiple levels of analysis of emotional and rational attitudes toward the Constitution.

On February 27, 2012, the official ceremony of the 10th UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture took place at the Maison de l’UNESCO in Paris, together with round tables on the theme “Art and culture, instruments for peace”, with laureates of this and previous editions of the Prize.

Ricardo Mbarkho, artist (Lebanon), co-moderated with Tereza Wagner, coordinator of the Prize, the round table “Views on the new forms of artistic expression of young Arabs”, with Bensalem Himmich (Morocco, laureate 2003), Abdelwahab Bouhdiba (Tunisia, laureate 2004), Cherif Khaznadar (France, laureate 2010), Elias Khoury (Lebanon, laureate 2011) and Isabella Camera d’Afflitto, president of the international jury.

The video “Arameans” by Ricardo Mbarkho was screened at Art Video Exchange, in collaboration with Small Projects Gallery, Tromsø, Norway, from March 3 to 5, 2012.

The website iloubnan.info published an article presenting Ricardo Mbarkho as a digital artist.

Works by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by Mark Hachem Gallery at the Contemporary Istanbul art fair, Istanbul, from November 24 to 27, 2011.

The video “Arameans” (Lebanon, 2007, 3 min 36 s) by Ricardo Mbarkho was screened as part of the CologneOFF festival at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Xochimilco, Mexico City, Mexico, from November 14 to 18, 2011, and at CeC 2012 – Carnival of e-Creativity, India, from February 24 to 26, 2012.

Ricardo Mbarkho took part in the Visual Art Forum 2011, a group exhibition held at the UNESCO Palace in Beirut from October 25 to November 1, 2011.

A video lecture by Ricardo Mbarkho was published online on digitalarti.com.

Works by Ricardo Mbarkho were presented by Mark Hachem Gallery at the MENASART Fair, held at BIEL in downtown Beirut from July 13 to 16, 2011.

In April 2001, Ricardo Mbarkho sent an email about a day dedicated to tabbouleh to more than 20,000 Lebanese people around the world, many of whom forwarded it to their own contacts. This was the start of the Lebanese National Tabbouleh Day, celebrated every year on the first Saturday of July by Lebanese people and their friends, in Lebanon and elsewhere, in private or in public, around this “king of the mezze”.

In 2011, the day fell on July 2. A public gathering was organized at Souk el Tayeb, held in the parking area of the Beirut Exhibition Center (BIEL), downtown Beirut, with a public tasting and a competition for the best tabbouleh.

WJ-SPOTS, an evening of talks on the history and future of the Internet and of artistic creation on the Internet, was held as part of the Mal au Pixel festival at the resource center of La Gaîté Lyrique, Paris, on June 10, 2011.

Ricardo Mbarkho published the text “On New Media and Creativity in the Lebanese Setting: 2008–2011” in the Leonardo Electronic Almanac (The MIT Press). It discusses how globalization and new media fostered change and creative pursuits in Lebanon between 2008 and 2011.

On May 16, 2011, Ricardo Mbarkho launched “Grading the Lebanese Constitution” (dastooronline.com), a web-based project in which people could anonymously grade any and every article of the current Lebanese Constitution. An overall average grade was constantly displayed and updated.

Centered on grading and mass evaluation, the project invited different readings of the numbers and graphs produced by the statistical results. It dealt with data interpretation, offering multiple levels of analysis of emotional and rational attitudes toward the Constitution.

The video “Arameans” (Lebanon, 2007, 3 min 36 s) by Ricardo Mbarkho was shown at Atopia in Oslo, Norway, on June 3–4, 2011, curated by Eli Souaiby.

Ricardo Mbarkho’s work “CONNECTED” was presented by Fred Forest at the Museaav in Nice, France, on March 20, 2011, as part of the Fête de l’Internet 2011.

The book Cultural Expression, Creativity and Innovation (Cultures and Globalization Series, SAGE, 2010) included a text by Ricardo Mbarkho, “A different kind of media creativity in the Lebanon” (pp. 270–271).

Ricardo Mbarkho’s video “More than normal” was made available on YouTube.

Ricardo Mbarkho received the Prize of the Lebanese Ministry of Culture for Contemporary Arts at the Visual Art Forum 2010 for his digital work “Digital Visuals from Lebanon” (video on YouTube). The award ceremony took place at the UNESCO Palace in Beirut on November 2, 2010.

Ricardo Mbarkho’s series “Digital Visuals from Lebanon” was shown at the Visual Art Forum, organized by LAAPS at the UNESCO Palace in Beirut from October 26 to November 2, 2010.

The 17th Biennale de Paris took place in Nicosia, Cyprus, from October 19 to 25, 2010, in partnership with the ARTos Foundation, around the project “Reinventing the terminology of art”, based on the idea that new art practices, such as invisual art, call for new terms. The program included a conference, a closed round table and artists’ “operations”.

Ricardo Mbarkho, artist and professor at ALBA (Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts), Beirut, presented the Lebanese National Tabbouleh Day as an operation at the ARTos Foundation from October 20 to 24, 2010.

Issue 69 of Turbulences Vidéo, the quarterly magazine published by VIDEOFORMES on video and digital media in contemporary art, featured an artist portrait of Ricardo Mbarkho. It included an interview with Ricardo Mbarkho by Gabriel Soucheyre; texts by Evelyne Rogue (“À la rencontre de l’Autre…” and “Gare de Lyon – Juvisy / Plus que normal”), Dieter Wieczorek (“Plus que normal”) and Fred Forest (“Le Moi collectif”); a CV and biography; and a video portrait.

Ricardo Mbarkho took part in the group exhibition “Politique 0” (Politique Zéro), held from October 1 to 3, 2010 at the Espace Niemeyer, in the Communist Party headquarters, Paris. The event was organized by Upgrade! Paris, les éditions MF and RYBN.ORG (program of “Politique 0”).

On November 9, 2010, IMéRA (Institut Méditerranéen de Recherches Avancées, Marseille) and ZINC held the workshop “Art and Sciences in the Mediterranean Rim. Which Intercultural Situation? Testimonies and Strategies” at the MMSH in Aix-en-Provence, France. It took place within the IMéRA ASIL program, the research residency of the Egyptian artist Mohamed Hassan Youssef, and the Franco-Egyptian Year of Science.

Ricardo Mbarkho, representing the YASMIN network in Lebanon, and Claudine Dussolier (RAMI/ZINC) presented “A possible panoramic view” of the relations between art and sciences in the Mediterranean region. Ricardo Mbarkho took part remotely from Lebanon, by video.

In 2001, Ricardo Mbarkho initiated the Lebanese National Tabbouleh Day, an annual celebration held on the first Saturday of July; in 2010 it fell on July 3. Tabbouleh, the best-known traditional Lebanese dish, is a unifying dish in a country torn by wars and tensions: like the Lebanese nation, its delicate harmony is threatened whenever one of its ingredients is set aside or neglected, and its colors, green, white and red, are those of the Lebanese flag.

On this day, Lebanese people and their friends around the world gather in private or in public around this “king of the mezze”. In 2010, a large public gathering with tastings and a competition for the best tabbouleh was organized at Souk el Tayeb in Saifi Village, downtown Beirut. In 2007, the Lebanese Ministry of Tourism had officially granted the day its approval and patronage.

From 1999 onwards, Ricardo Mbarkho circulated the contact details of people who agreed to be contacted by anyone informed of their availability. This art activity is titled “Each one has from art what art has from itself”.

A new list of contacts was presented in a group exhibition at the LAA Gallery, Beirut, which opened on April 28, 2010 and ran until May 5, 2010.

Ricardo Mbarkho took part in a video art exhibition held as part of the festival Les Vagamondes at the Théâtre de l’Agora, scène nationale d’Évry et de l’Essonne, in Évry, France, from November 17 to 27, 2009, alongside Lamia Joreige, Jalal Toufic, Ziad Antar and Nadim Asfar.

An article by Pascale Azar was published in the newspaper Al Nahar.

An article by Faten El-Hajj was published in the newspaper Al Akhbar.

Laurence Le Saux published an article about Ricardo Mbarkho, “Ricardo Mbarkho, créateur numérique libanais en colère” (Ricardo Mbarkho, an angry Lebanese digital creator), on the website of Télérama.

Ricardo Mbarkho, representing the YASMIN network, took part in the panel “Communautés et réseaux internationaux de création numérique” (International communities and networks of digital creation) on September 29, 2009 at the Village des partenaires in Saifi, Beirut, alongside Alexandre Castonguay (Artengine network), Génova (Blender community), Marika Dermineur (Upgrade! and Incident.net networks), and Abdo Nawar and Claudine Dussolier (RAMI network).

Ricardo Mbarkho and Marika Dermineur were the speakers at the talk “Enjeux de la création numérique” (Challenges of digital creation), held on September 28, 2009 at the Village des partenaires in Saifi, Beirut.

As part of Crea Numerica, a program of talks, performances and exhibitions in several venues in downtown Beirut, the Institut de la Francophonie Numérique of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie presented the exhibition of digital works “Regards croisés sur l’art et les nouvelles technologies” at Pièce Unique Gallery, Saifi Village, Beirut, from September 28 to October 6, 2009. It brought together “Rétro-ingénierie” by Alexandre Castonguay and Mathieu Bouchard, “Digital Visuals from Lebanon” by Ricardo Mbarkho and “L’Oreiller rêveur” by Armella Leung.

“Digital Visuals from Lebanon” (June 2008) is a series of eight digital images printed on photo paper, based on the many agreements signed by the Lebanese State since the independence of Lebanon in 1943. The artist had a computer read the text files of these agreements as if they were image files; the binary code of each text file generated the corresponding image.

Ricardo Mbarkho’s solo exhibition “[Since Art]”, curated by Ricardo Echevarria, was held at microARTos in Madrid, Spain, from June 5 to 12, 2009, as part of the ARTos Foundation project “Beauty is the bEAST”.

As part of its activities as Cultural Observatory of the Middle East, the ARTos Foundation organized the exhibition “Beauty is the bEAST” within “Windows Upon Oceans”, the closing event of Artventure, a three-year European program involving Cyprus, Greece, France, Belgium and Poland. It presented video art, photography, performances and installations by Middle Eastern artists identified during ARTos research trips to Lebanon and Egypt.

Curated by Achilleas Kentonis, the exhibition was shown at the ARTos Foundation in Nicosia from May 20, 2009 and at the old port of Limassol on May 23, 2009. In Madrid, microARTos hosted a solo exhibition of Ricardo Mbarkho, curated by Ricardo Echevarria, from June 5 to 12, 2009.

In April 2009, Ricardo Mbarkho moderated the YASMIN online discussion “New Media: User’s Behavior, Social Systems, and the Body Politic”. It examined how (new) media affect local behaviors related to creativity and innovation within a socio-political context: SMS voting and democracy, the use of media by politicians and by artists, virtual social networks linking families dispersed by economic necessity, and the impact of media content on identity and belonging.

The invited respondents were Jordan Crandall, Annie Paul, Eugenio Tisselli Vélez, Delphine Tonglet and Tereza Wagner.

The video “Arameans” by Ricardo Mbarkho was screened at the 16th edition of FIAV (Festival International d’Art Vidéo de Casablanca), held from April 21 to 25, 2009 at the Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines Ben M’Sik, Casablanca, Morocco.

The video “Arameans” by Ricardo Mbarkho was selected for the 2009 edition of the Signes de Nuit International Festival in Paris.

“Arameans” (Lebanon, 2007, video, 3 min 36 s) questions the mobility of the Arameans in the Lebanese social context through the example of an Assyrian woman who lived through one of the explosions in Beirut. Having left Iraq and then Syria, are the Arameans, who have kept their language and religion, once again pursued by terrorism in Lebanon?

Other screenings of the video, 2007–2009:

• Goethe-Institut, Beirut, Lebanon, October 29 – November 1, 2007
• transmediale.08, Berlin, Germany, January 30, 2008
• Sarajevo Winter International Festival “Barricades without borders”, Video-Salon 3, galerie10m2, Sarajevo, March 7–21, 2008
• LOOP’08 festival, Barcelona, Spain, May 6–18, 2008
• LiteSide Festival, Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, August 22–24, 2008
• Oslo Screen Festival, Oslo, Norway, October 2008
• 21st Instants Vidéo festival, Marseille, France, November 2008
• INVIDEO festival, Milan, Italy, November 14, 2008
• Signes de Nuit International Festival (Paris) at REJECT Festival 2009, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, January 24, 2009
• Exhibition “Image : fixe, mobile, animée”, Centre Culturel Français, Beirut, February 10 – March 6, 2009
• VIDEOFORMES festival, Clermont-Ferrand, France, March 2009

The catalog of the VIDEOFORMES 2009 festival in Clermont-Ferrand, France, where Ricardo Mbarkho’s video “Arameans” was screened, was published online in an English version and a French version.

Ricardo Mbarkho, artist and professor at ALBA (Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts), Beirut, was a member of the evaluation committee of FrancoLABS, a database listing abstracts of completed French-language doctoral and master’s theses, in all disciplines, whose subject lies at the intersection of arts, sciences and technologies.

The committee, made up of academics, artists and researchers from France, Belgium, Germany, Quebec and Lebanon, validated the selection of abstracts published online. Those that particularly drew the experts’ attention were to be published in Leonardo or the Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA).

Ricardo Mbarkho took part in the group exhibition “Image : fixe, mobile, animée” at the gallery of the Centre Culturel Français in Beirut, which brought together nineteen artists and where his video “Arameans” was shown. The exhibition opened on February 10, 2009 and ran from February 11 to March 6, 2009.

The video “Arameans” by Ricardo Mbarkho was screened at REJECT Festival 2009 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on January 24, 2009, as part of a selection by Dieter Wieczorek, director of the Signes de Nuit International Festival (Paris).

The video “Arameans” by Ricardo Mbarkho was screened at the VIDEOFORMES festival in Clermont-Ferrand, France, in March 2009.

The video “Arameans” by Ricardo Mbarkho was screened at Espace l’Harmattan, Paris, on December 20, 2008, as part of a selection of videos from Lebanon curated by Serge Seroff.

In November 2008, Ricardo Mbarkho’s video “Arameans” (Lebanon, 2007, DV, color, 3 min 36 s) was made available in full on his website.

The video questions the mobility of the Arameans in the Lebanese social context through the example of an Assyrian woman who lived through one of the explosions in Beirut. Having left Iraq and then Syria, are the Arameans, who have kept their language and their religion, once again pursued by terrorism in Lebanon?

Ricardo Mbarkho’s video “Arameans” was screened at the INVIDEO festival (mostrainvideo.com) at Spazio Oberdan in Milan, Italy, on November 14, 2008.

Ricardo Mbarkho presented “CONNECTED” at the Sunflower (Dawar el Shams) in Beirut during the White Night (Nuit Blanche) of October 24, 2008.

Ricardo Mbarkho’s video “Arameans” was shown at lagalerie, rue de la Forge Royale, Paris, from October 23 to November 29, 2008.

Ricardo Mbarkho’s video “Arameans” was screened on November 10, 2008 at the 21st Instants Vidéo festival (Instants Vidéo Numériques et Poétiques), at the Friche la Belle de Mai (Cartonnerie) in Marseille.

Ricardo Mbarkho exhibited at Art Paris Abu Dhabi, held at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi from November 17 to 21, 2008.

Ricardo Mbarkho’s video “Arameans” (Lebanon, 2007, DV, 3 min 36 s) was shown at the Oslo Screen Festival, which opened on October 24, 2008 at Sound of Mu, with screenings at the Cinematheque on October 25 and 26, 2008.

The video questions the mobility of the Arameans in the Lebanese social context through the example of an Assyrian woman who lived through one of the explosions in Beirut. Having left Iraq and then Syria, are the Arameans, who have kept their language and their religion, once again pursued by terrorism in Lebanon?

Ricardo Mbarkho’s video “Arameans” was screened at the LiteSide Festival, held at the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam from August 22 to 24, 2008.

Ricardo Mbarkho was a guest on “Very Close” (Karib Jeddan), the program hosted by Joseph Eisawi on Al Hurra TV, in a special edition on video art and installation art. The program, an hour-long interview with cultural figures from the Middle East, was broadcast on Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 22:10 Beirut time, with reruns the following day.

The eighth Lebanese National Tabbouleh Day took place on July 5, 2008. Proposed by Ricardo Mbarkho, this yearly day dedicated to tabbouleh was celebrated on the first Saturday of July.

Tabbouleh, the best-known traditional Lebanese dish, is symbolic in the diversity of its ingredients: like the Lebanese nation, its delicate harmony is threatened whenever one of its components is set aside or neglected, and its colors, green, white and red, are those of the Lebanese flag.

The day invited Lebanese people and their friends around the world to gather, privately or in public, around this “king of mezze” and to show their attachment to their country: it was enough for each person to eat tabbouleh, knowing that they were sharing it with all Lebanese people around the world and their friends.

The exhibition “Lebanon Now” (LAA Gallery, Beirut, June 21–30, 2008), in which Ricardo Mbarkho took part, was covered in the press, including:

• Al Anbaa, June 17, 2008
• Al Balad, June 23, 2008
• L’Orient-Le Jour, June 26, 2008
• Al-Mustaqbal, June 27, 2008
• La Revue du Liban, June 2008

Articles were also announced in Al Nahar, Al Safir and The National (thenational.ae). The exhibition was also covered by the TV channels TL, LBCI, OTV, Future TV and KSA 2.

From June 21 to 30, 2008 (opening on June 20), the Association of Lebanese Artists presented “Lebanon Now”, an exhibition of new media art at the LAA Gallery, Verdun Street, Beirut, in which the artists questioned the Lebanon of the time through the elements of the digital world: images, sound and words.

Ricardo Mbarkho presented “Digital visuals from Lebanon” (2008), a series of digital images printed on large-format photographic paper, based on agreements signed by the Lebanese State since independence. The artist had the computer open the text files of these agreements as if they were image files: it computed the binary code of each text file and generated the corresponding image. The series included the Doha Agreement, the Taif Agreement, the Lebanon–Syria Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination, the Tripartite Agreement, the Cairo Agreement, the National Pact, the Lebanese Constitution and the word “Lebanon” itself.

Ricardo Mbarkho was among the more than fifty artists featured in Art et Internet, a book by Fred Forest published by Cercle d’art in 2008 (128 pages, ISBN 978-2-7022-0864-9).

The book examines what artists show or reveal when they exploit, explore or divert the functions of the Internet. Their unusual uses of the Internet and of other networks differ from everyday uses and shed light on the nature of cyberspace, a space driven entirely by exchanges of information. How to represent or perceive this “space” made of exchanges is one of the questions running through many artistic works exploring digital technology and the Internet.

Ricardo Mbarkho’s video “Arameans” (Lebanon, 2007, color, 3 min 36 s) was screened at LOOP’08, the sixth edition of the LOOP festival in Barcelona, held from May 6 to 18, 2008.

The video questions the mobility of the Arameans in the Lebanese social context through the example of an Assyrian woman who lived through one of the explosions in Beirut. Having left Iraq and then Syria, are the Arameans, who have kept their language and their religion, once again pursued by terrorism in Lebanon?

“Arameans” had previously been screened at:

• the Goethe-Institut, Beirut, Lebanon, October 29 – November 1, 2007
• transmediale.08, House of World Cultures, Berlin, Germany, January 30, 2008
• Video-Salon 3, international festival Sarajevo Winter “Barricades without borders”, galerija10m2, Sarajevo, March 7–21, 2008

On April 25, 2008, Ricardo Mbarkho gave a presentation entitled “Beirut and Media Art today” at the congress of the European Media Art Festival (EMAF) in Osnabrück, Germany, held at the Haus der Jugend.

In his lecture, he discussed the media art scene in Beirut and showed a selection of videos questioning the identity crisis in the Lebanese socio-political and cultural sphere. The war on Lebanon since 1975 remained a major concern for its multicultural society, and the country was then going through one of its tensest political divisions, having failed to elect a president able to bridge the gap between the government and the opposition. Ricardo Mbarkho addressed the relationship between the Middle East conflict, the media system and art from geographical and historical angles.

On February 4, 2008, the Lebanese daily Al Anwar published an article by Claude Abou Chacra about the Lebanese participation in the transmediale.08 festival in Berlin.

Ricardo Mbarkho’s video “Arameans” (Lebanon, 2007, 3 min 36 s) was screened from March 7 to 21, 2008 at galerija10m2 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Video-Salon 3, part of the international festival Sarajevo Winter, “Barricades without borders”.

On January 15, 2008, L’Orient-Le Jour published an article in French by Maya Ghandour Hert, “Trois Libanais « conspirent » à la Transmediale.08”, about three Lebanese artists at transmediale.08 in Berlin.

Ricardo Mbarkho’s video “Arameans” (Lebanon, 2007, 3 min 36 s) was screened at transmediale.08 “CONSPIRE…”, festival for art and digital culture, at the House of World Cultures in Berlin on January 30, 2008.

On December 7, 2007, the website iLoubnan.info featured on its front page an article by Diana Kahil about Ricardo Mbarkho, including an interview.

On November 25, 2007, as part of RAMI (International Encounters on Arts and Multimedia), Ricardo Mbarkho spoke about art and new media at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Alexandria University, Egypt.

On November 24, 2007, as part of RAMI (International Encounters on Arts and Multimedia), Ricardo Mbarkho spoke about the relationship between art and digital tools at the Atelier of Alexandria, Egypt.

From November 19 to 25, 2007, the last RAMI (International Encounters on Arts and Multimedia) events of 2007 took place in Alexandria, Egypt, organized by the Atelier of Alexandria, ZINC/ECM, SHAMS and Studio Azzurro as part of the 24th Alexandria Biennale. Ricardo Mbarkho, Lebanese artist, researcher and teacher of multimedia art in Beirut, and member of the YASMIN network, gave a seminar at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Alexandria University on November 25.

The program also included a meeting on the relationships between arts and multimedia at the Atelier on November 24, a daily multimedia cultural space, the interactive installation “La Table à la recherche du temps perdu” by Mohamed Youssef and Sharif El Sayed, and performances by the Cairo group Intermedia, led by Nahla Mattar, and by the Lebanese duo Charbel Haber and Jean-Marc Nahas at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina on November 25.

Issue no. 4131 of La Revue du Liban (November 10–17, 2007) published an article by Nicole Malhamé Harfouche about the video exhibition at the Goethe-Institut in Beirut, which brought together video works from Germany and from Lebanon.

From October 29 to November 1, 2007, the Goethe-Institut in Beirut presented “40 Years of Video Art in Germany”, a selection of German video works from the past forty years shown as a multi-screen installation, alongside a selection of works by Lebanese video artists compiled by SHAMS. Ricardo Mbarkho’s video “Arameans” was screened as part of the SHAMS selection.

In October 2007, Ricardo Mbarkho led a seminar on art and new media at RAMI (International Encounters on Arts and Multimedia) in Beirut. Participants studied new information and communication technologies (Internet, mobile phones, satellites, digital networks, interactive games) and their impact on the artist’s social and political environment, and explored new possibilities for experimentation, collaboration with engineers and scientists, and the aesthetics made possible by cyberspace, interactivity and the Internet.

Oriented toward theory and aesthetics, the seminar worked as a research laboratory in new media art. It offered an overview of the history of new media art to analyze artworks and the criteria for judging them, and helped participants define their position as artists working with new media within contemporary art practice.

Representing the YASMIN network in Lebanon, Ricardo Mbarkho led the “Art and New Media” seminar during the fifth step of RAMI (International Encounters on Arts and Multimedia), held from October 4 to 15, 2007 at the Sunflower (Dawar el Shams) in Beirut. The other seminars were led by Marc Mercier (Instants Vidéo), Paolo Rosa (Studio Azzurro) and Nahla Mattar (Cairo University).

RAMI was an international platform for experimentation, exchange and circulation dedicated to contemporary creation, digital tools and multimedia in the Mediterranean, developed between September 2006 and December 2007 by SHAMS (Beirut), ZINC/ECM (Marseille), L’Atelier d’Alexandrie and Studio Azzurro/ASTAR (Milan), in seven steps in Marseille, Aix, Beirut and Alexandria. The Beirut step also included three workshops, performances, installations and a public forum on October 14, 2007.

On July 9, 2007, L’Orient-Le Jour published an article by Carla Henoud, “À vos taboulés, prêts, partez !”, and an editorial by Nagib Aoun, “Une question de goût”, in connection with the Lebanese National Tabbouleh Day (nationaltabboulehday.com).

On July 8, 2007, the Lebanese newspaper Al Nahar published an article about the 7th edition of the Lebanese National Tabbouleh Day, celebrated at Souk el Tayeb in downtown Beirut (nationaltabboulehday.com).

On July 8, 2007, the Lebanese newspaper Al Balad published an article in Arabic by Christie Abou-Farah, “The Tabbouleh on its National Day”, about the Lebanese National Tabbouleh Day (nationaltabboulehday.com).

On July 5, 2007, L’Orient-Le Jour published an article by Maya Ghandour Hert, “« Tabouleurs » du monde entier, unissez-vous !”, about the Lebanese National Tabbouleh Day (nationaltabboulehday.com).

On May 12, 2007, Ricardo Mbarkho represented the YASMIN network at the RAMI meeting and press conference held in Beirut (announcement on the YASMIN website).

RAMI (International Encounters on Arts and Multimedia) was a platform for experimentation and dissemination that, from September 2006 to December 2007, organized international meetings on contemporary creation, digital tools and multimedia.

The catalog of the 15th Biennale de Paris was published and distributed by Paris Musées. It includes a presentation of the Lebanese National Tabbouleh Day, proposed by Ricardo Mbarkho.

Team Misr, the company that initiated the Arab Digital Expression project, invited Ricardo Mbarkho to take part in the curriculum developers’ meeting in Cairo, to finalize the goals, objectives, evaluation measures, suggested materials and methodology of the curricula for the camps: digital film and video, visual design (print and digital), digital music and web design.

The Arab Digital Expression camps were three-week residential summer camps for 160 young people aged 12 to 15 from several Arab countries, teaching them to use communication media technologies to express themselves through image, sound and print. They were held in two sessions, July 8–28 and August 4–24, 2007, at the Gulf Soleimaniyah Resort, 50 km from Cairo on the Cairo–Alexandria road.

Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) and Wadih Safieddine curated “Vues de Beyrouth”, a program of videos by Lebanese artists presented at Galerie B-312 in Montreal from September 9 to October 14, 2006, as part of the Beirut–Montreal exchange project “Vue double”, whose Beirut evening at Espace SD had taken place a week before the July 2006 war in Lebanon.

The curators selected works that raise the question of identity in contemporary Lebanese society, where religion, politics, war and the post-war period continue to affect identity and belonging. The 76-minute program was shown in a loop throughout the exhibition.

Ricardo Mbarkho, a new media and video artist, then taught at ALBA (Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts) in Beirut and was adviser and coordinator of the Festival International de Film et Vidéo de Création in Beirut. Wadih Safieddine was co-organizer of the Lebanese Film Festival.

Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) and Wadih Safieddine curated the exhibition “Beirut – The video practice” at Galerie B-312 in Montreal, Canada, from September 9 to October 14, 2006.

Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak), new media artist and university professor in Beirut, was a member of the Proposal Committee of the Fair Play 2006 Video Festival, held from July 13 to 31, 2006 at PLAY_gallery for still and motion pictures in Berlin, Germany.

The international committee brought together ten curators, critics and artists; the festival’s jury was made up of eight curators and film experts.

The 6th Lebanese National Tabbouleh Day was held on Saturday, July 1, 2006. Celebrated every year on the first Saturday of July, it brings Lebanese people and their friends around the world together around tabbouleh, a traditional dish, to celebrate the link between them and with their country.

Launched in 2001 by Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak), artist and professor at ALBA (Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts), the initiative sought to ease the divisions of a people bruised by thirty years of war. In 2005, more than 240,000 people gathered in Lebanon, Canada, the United States and Europe, without any promotion by the Lebanese state. In 2006, the day was presented by the 15th Biennale de Paris.

“The idea is not to eat the meal as such. It happens in your head, in the acknowledgement of this common link.” (Ricardo Mbarkho)

On April 9, 2006, the UNESCO DigiArts team organised in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, an experts meeting to evaluate the Masters Module on Art, Design and Technology in the Arab States, within the Kitabat: Arabic Calligraphy and Typography Conference. Twenty-one students had completed the online part of the module, hosted by the MediaLab in Helsinki and including the course “Introduction to Art and New Media in the Arab States, with a case-study of Lebanon” taught by Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak).

The meeting also finalised the second part of the module, “Digital imaging in art and design”, scheduled at ALBA (Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts), AUB and LAU from June 26, 2006, with fourteen students from five Arab countries.

The second edition of the Festival international de film et vidéo de création, “New moving images”, was held at Cinema Empire Sofil in Beirut from March 2 to 5, 2006. It presented a selection of creative videos from Lebanese and European festivals and projects: the Lebanese Film Festival (Lebanon), transmediale (Germany), Xeno_Tech (Netherlands) and the Pesaro Film Festival (Italy), with screenings preceded by talks by video artists, producers, theorists and festival organisers.

The festival was a project of ALBA (Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts, University of Balamand) and the Goethe-Institut Beirut.

UNESCO, in cooperation with the Lebanese American University (LAU), the American University of Beirut (AUB), ALBA (Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts) and other universities in the Arab region, proposed the creation of a master module on Art, Design and Technology for the Arab States, combining computing, design and creative practice. The first, experimental master class (2005–2006) had three parts: online courses, a face-to-face course in Beirut, and a final project submitted online.

Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) taught Part 1.1, “Introduction to Art and New Media in the Arab States, with a case-study of Lebanon”, online from October 31 to November 13, 2005.

The video “Gare de Lyon – Juvisy” by Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak), France (1999), colour, 52 min, with English subtitles, was screened at Back Stage, Gemmayzé, Beirut, Lebanon, on October 26, 2005.

The video “More than normal” (“Plus que normal”) by Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) was presented in the video and film selection of the travelling programme of the Signes de Nuit festival at Les Voûtes, Paris, as part of the official programme of Nuit Blanche 2005, on the night of October 1 to 2, 2005.

Videos and documents about the UN WSIS Contributory Conference on ICT & Creativity (Vienna, June 2005) were published on the conference website.

A photograph published with this news showed, from left to right: Tereza Wagner (in charge of the DigiArts programme, UNESCO), Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak; new media artist and professor at ALBA, Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts, Beirut), Carlos Cabral Nunes (artist and director, Colectivo Multimédia Perve, Portugal), Mark Amerika (professor of digital art, University of Colorado, USA), Mark Federman (McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, University of Toronto, Canada) and Gerfried Stocker (director of Ars Electronica, Austria).

The news section relayed an invitation to subscribe to YASMIN, a moderated mailing list on interactions between art, science and technology around the Mediterranean Rim.

Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) took part in the World Summit Contributory Conference on ICT & Creativity, an Austrian initiative held in Vienna on June 2 and 3, 2005. His participation took place on June 3, in Workshop Session 6, “eCulture, Creative Content and DigiArts”.

The conference aimed to take a critical look at what had happened worldwide since the beginning of the Digital Revolution, to agree on measures to shape the further development of the Information Society, and to produce “a truly optimistic statement”, the Vienna Declaration, intended for the second part of the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis in 2005.

The March 22, 2005 newsletter of Universes in Universe – Worlds of Art, an information and communication system on the arts of Africa, Asia and Latin America/Caribbean, included an article in Arabic, English and German about the lecture given by Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) at transmediale in Berlin.

On February 6, 2005, Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) gave a talk at transmediale.05 in Berlin on the approaches and roles of emerging artists in the multicultural Lebanese society of the time, where religion, politics, war and the post-war environment affected issues of identity and belonging.

On January 17, 2005, the Goethe-Institut in Beirut held a screening of films and videos: “Berlin Beirut” by Myrna Maakaron (21 min), “Miracle” by George Homsy (25 min) and “More than normal” (“Plus que normal”) by Ricardo Mbarkho (10 min).

The video “More than normal” (“Plus que normal”) by Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) was screened at Le Cube, Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, on December 16, 2004, during a video night presented by the travelling programme of the Signes de Nuit festival, Paris.

The video “Gare de Lyon – Juvisy” by Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak), France (1999), colour, 52 min, in French, was screened at the ciné-club of Espace SD, Gemmayzé, Beirut, on Thursday, November 11, 2004.

A trip from Paris to Juvisy is the setting of this experimental video, which tells a story whose narrative remains close to that of a documentary or a fiction film. The visual landscape becomes the backdrop of misunderstandings: an accident during the journey sets off plots that hold the viewer until the outcome, discovered at the end of the path, at the end of this “failed” trip.

On September 29, 2004, L’Orient-Le Jour published an article in French by Maya Ghandour Hert about Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak), entitled “Rencontre – De la vidéo au Net Art, en passant par les effets spéciaux numériques. Ricardo Mbarak, artiste nouveaux médias” (Encounter – From video to net art, by way of digital special effects. Ricardo Mbarak, new media artist).

The video “More than normal” (“Plus que normal”, France, 2002, colour, 10 min 18 s) by Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) was screened at the European Film Festival in Turkey in October 2004, in the programme of the guest festival Signes de Nuit (Paris): in Ankara (October 1–7), Bursa (October 8–14) and Izmir (October 18–24).

The video “More than normal” (“Plus que normal”) by Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) was screened at the first Festival télé-jeunes en francophonie, held at the Cinémathèque québécoise in Montreal, Canada, from October 5 to 8, 2004.

Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) took part as an invited artist in a group exhibition of 34 artists at INGAN II, Berlin, Germany, on September 18 and 19, 2004.

On September 4 and 5, 2004, Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) took part in Linz, Austria, in the Workshop on the Creation of Art, Design and Technology Master Classes in the Arab States, organised by UNESCO within the framework of the Ars Electronica festival.

The workshop looked into ways of developing art, design and technology teaching at university level in the Arab States, in cooperation with the Mediterranean Rim. It aimed to promote international and intercultural dialogue, exchange and cooperation in this field, still relatively limited in the region.

The video “More than normal” (“Plus que normal”) by Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) was screened on August 7, 2004 at Cinema Black Box, associated with the Düsseldorf Film Museum, in Düsseldorf, Germany, as part of the Signes de Nuit festival.

In early July 2004, the new DVD by Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) was available in the New Releases section of all Virgin Megastores in Lebanon.

Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) was the guest of the television programme “Cinema Beirut” on NBN (Lebanon, also broadcast via Arabsat) on Friday, July 2, 2004. He talked about his recently released DVD, and his video “Gare de Lyon – Juvisy” was screened in full.

The DVD “Ricardo Mbarak” was released in Lebanon on Wednesday, June 30, 2004. Distributed by Sabbah Media Corporation, it contains two videos by Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak), with Arabic, English or French subtitles:

• “Gare de Lyon – Juvisy”, France (1999), video, colour, 52 min
• “More than normal” (“Plus que normal”), France (2002), video, colour, 10 min 18 s

The forthcoming release of a DVD featuring two videos by Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) was announced:

• “Gare de Lyon – Juvisy”, France (1999), video, colour, 52 min
• “More than normal” (“Plus que normal”), France (2002), video, colour, 10 min 18 s

Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) took part in the Biennale de Paris 2004. In this framework, his work was presented at Espace SD in Beirut, Lebanon, from March 4 to 29, 2004.

ALBA informed Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) that, given the situation between Lebanon and Israel at the time, the Lebanese General Security (Sûreté Générale) considered his participation in the transmediale round table in Berlin impossible.

With no peaceful way of attending the meeting, Ricardo Mbarkho subsequently declined transmediale’s invitation.

Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) was invited to take part in transmediale.04, international media art festival, held in Berlin from January 31 to February 4, 2004.

His participation was planned for the special conference session “Near East – Far West? Media Art Dialogue” on February 2, 2004, which asked what the tasks of net artists and activists are in a culture of crisis and war, and how they use new media to overcome ethnic and political boundaries in the space of global networks.

Ricardo Mbarkho eventually declined the invitation, as the Lebanese General Security deemed his participation in the round table impossible.

The works by Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) presented at the Journées méditerranéennes des arts plastiques in Sousse, Tunisia, were featured on netartreview, together with a critical article, in the features of the week of November 2–8, 2003.

In early November 2003, La Revue du Liban published in its Arts et culture section an article in French by Nicole Malhamé Harfouche about the participation of Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) in the Journées méditerranéennes des arts plastiques in Sousse, Tunisia.

Evelyne Rogue published an article in French, “À la rencontre de l’Autre”, about the participation of Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) in the fourth session of the Journées méditerranéennes des arts plastiques in Sousse, Tunisia, in 2003.

Evelyne Rogue, Doctor of Letters and Human Sciences, was then an associate researcher at the Centre de Philosophie des Activités Artistiques Contemporaines (CPAAC), Université Paris 1, and director of artcogitans, a website devoted to emerging contemporary art.

In September 2003, the online monthly Archée published in its Cyberthéorie section a text in French by Evelyne Rogue, “De l’esthétique de l’implémentation à l’esthétique de la commutation et de l’interactivité dévoilante”, which discusses the work “CONNECTED” by Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak).

Excerpt (translated from French): “[…] in the case of network art, as in any other art, but also more than in any other, it is necessary to interpret and reorganise the world in terms of works, and works in terms of the world, as R. Mbarak proposes with Connected.”

The works “CONNECTED” and “VISITORS” by Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) were presented at the fourth session of the Journées méditerranéennes des arts plastiques (JMAP, Mediterranean Days of Visual Arts) in Sousse, Tunisia, from October 9 to 15, 2003.

This international event brought together artists and art theorists from Mediterranean countries for exhibitions, workshops and a symposium on the theme “New techniques of re-presentation in relation to new technologies”. The programme also included in-situ installations and video and interactive multimedia installations, shown for the first time in Tunisia.

The work “CONNECTED” by Ricardo Mbarkho (then signing as Ricardo Mbarak) was presented at JavaMuseum, Forum for Internet Technologies in Contemporary Art, as part of the feature “Current Positions of French Netart”.

JavaMuseum (Java = Joint Advanced Virtual Affairs), an experimental platform for net-based art operating from Cologne, Germany, was a corporate member of NewMediaArtProjectNetwork :||cologne.