Shadi Habib Allah, M1, 2022, HD video, color, four-channel sound, 15 mins
To take stock of the past year, Artforum asked an international group of artists to select a single exhibition or event that most memorably caught their attention in 2022.
LAWRENCE ABU HAMDAN
Shadi Habib Allah (Lofoten International Art Festival, Norway)
Shadi Habib Allah has given us a body of work that is absorbed by the ways in which electromagnetic, electronic, and radiophonic transmissions amplify but also surpass juridical and political boundaries. With M1, 2022, he expands his thesis into an exploration of the electromagnetic governance of wolves in Sweden. The central component is a sound piece that brings together a network of voices that circle around a former Ericsson engineer who developed electro-hypersensitivity, a type of allergy to radio frequency. His condition forces him to live way up north beyond the electromagnetic orbit, but he still becomes triggered by the GPS emissions from nearby wolves (tagged for conservation purposes). An accompanying multichannel video adds a layer of tactility: Blades of grass, fluffs of snow, and the brush of hair sway in consonance with the sound to allow us to inhabit the line between technological and so-called “natural” environments.