Monitor Man in The Time of Pandemic - short film - 2022

Monitor Man in The Time of Pandemic - short film Monitor Man in the Time of Pandemic explores the global political crisis from the time of COVID-19 to the social instabilities and movements in the Western world. At the core of the project lies an interest in transgressing national and physical borders by using Yassine Khaled's Monitor Man -concept as it enables new kinds of interactions across virtual meeting pointsand reflects the current situation of our global society. The time of lockdown has beenexceptional and challenging for many people around the world, so communication technologybecame one of the only tools to be connected with families and friends. That inspired Khaledto make this new short film about his long term -project "Monitor Man". In this film MonitorMan has conversations with six people from three continents.

Link for the trailer: https://vimeo.com/434015022

Monitor Man in the Time of Pandemic is a short film where Yassine Khaled’s ongoing performance project will step into the time of COVID-19 crisis. As Khaled’s project Monitor Man is originally based on virtual communication in public space, the new short film explores the private space — homes of isolated participants.

 Now that more than a third of the world’s population is living under some form of lockdown, our daily life has become even more depending on technology in order to keep us connected. Monitor Man in the Time of Pandemic examines the historical time through different cultural reflections and by creating a social situation where participants can share their quarantine experiences.

 Originally, the idea of making  Monitor Man was inspired by the refugee crisis of 2015 and people who are restricted in their freedom of movement. Paradoxically, this time almost all the people on earth are facing restrictions of movement. So, the aim of Monitor Man in the Time of Pandemic -short film is to search about possible reactions during lockdown ranging from empathy between geographically distant bodies to gestures of frustration.

Overall the new short film of Monitor Man is to create an intriguing collage about the situation that unites people all over the world. The focus is on free conversation about everyday life and two-direction experience as Monitor Man will be outside walking in the forest or fishing at a lake the other person will be inside at home. This contrast works as a basement structure of the work, but the work will also include a loose storyline as we travel from continent to another.