As part of the DINAMO program Disinformation, IMAI shows the video work Being Strong Is Hard (2021) by Leyla Yenirce at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.
With Being Strong Is Hard, the artist has developed an audiovisual work against the backdrop of a generally accelerated consumption of video and news of our time, in which the speed of the material shown increases significantly. The material, which she recorded herself – or found online, revising it together with Kuno Seltman – shows Kurdish activists, journalists, and fighters in their commitment to political self-determination. Underpinned by an electronic beat, which also bears witness to Yenirce's work as a musician and sound artist, the work finds a convincing form for the media-mediated simultaneity and overlapping of news and music clips, political activation, and entertainment. In doing so, Yenirce cites the format of the image carousel as an important historical reference for her work and an early example of image overload.