Episode #230: Omer Fast discusses "Continuity" (2012), a short film that was commissioned for dOCUMENTA (13) and questions the very nature of truth and narrative. "Continuity" depicts a middle-class married couple and the return of their son from Afghanistan. What begins as a straightforward homecoming story set in a conventional domestic interior is interrupted by uneasy repetition and the appearance of ghostly, surreal apparitions from the warzone.

"With more and more questions, you create a productive kind of confusion and that’s what I’m after," says Fast. As the family's increasingly choreographed reunion unfolds, a sense of longing and emptiness pervades. Fast adds, "It's about figuring out what to put along the way to pull you away from this notion that there is a linear story with a goal at the end."

Omer Fast's multichannel video installations blur the boundaries between documentary, dramatization, and pure fantasy, frequently provoking confusion in viewers. Through repetition and reenactment, multiple takes of given scenes build shades of interpretation and ambiguity as a story is told, retold, and mythologized. Stories of origin, trauma, and desire fuse and mutate, forming blended genres that confound expectations and disrupt narrative conventions. Projected into space or unfolding simultaneously on multiple screens, the work resonates with familiar characters who seem to express the elemental complications and contradictions of their own identities.

Learn more about the artist at:
http://www.art21.org/artists/omer-fast

CREDITS: Producer: Ian Forster. Consulting Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Editor: Morgan Riles. Camera: Claus Deubel & Miguel Sanchez Martin. Sound: Agnes Jammal & Oliver Lumpe. Artwork Courtesy: Omer Fast, Arratia Beer, Dvir Gallery & gb agency.

ART21 "Exclusive" is supported, in part, by 21c Museum Hotel, and by individual contributors.