Manipulations
Manipulations is a video inspired by the famous game of logic Rubik’s cube. It is a succession of close-ups of varying intensity showing a pair of hands manipulating a cube with colored faces, to a soundtrack of a regular and insistent beat, the clicking of the cubes combining at times with strident acoustic distortions. As the resolution of the logic game progresses, cubes with black faces that weren’t initially present appear, progressively replacing the colored cubes until the brainteaser becomes completely black, with the exception of a row of cubes with a white line. Meanwhile, the hands tirelessly continue their manipulations while images of the Kaaba are overlaid on those of the hands moving around and being progressively covered in black. This piece is part of a larger body of work initiated in 2004 that also comprises a series of photographs, a sculpture and a video game.
From the archive
If you search for a needle in a haystack for too long, you start to get bored, then tired, then angry. If you get angry enough, you might even throw the whole haystack away, but then you've lost the needle forever...
Why this is free to watch
Manipulations (2004) is hosted by the Internet Archive as a public-domain or openly licensed work, which means its copyright has expired, lapsed, or was released by the rights holder. The uploader declared an explicit licence, linked in the source panel. Nitrate streams the file directly from the Archive and hosts no video itself.
- Director
- Mounir Fatmi
Player shortcuts
- Space Play / pause
- ← → Skip 10s
- ↑ ↓ Volume
- M Mute
- F Fullscreen
- 0–9 Jump to %
