K Á R Y Y N’s “ALEPPO” Is A Home Video Homage To The Syrian City

“There’s a whole world in my memories of a place that is now is rubble.”

February 21, 2017
K Á R Y Y N’s “ALEPPO” Is A Home Video Homage To The Syrian City K Á R Y Y N   Photo by Derek Hutchison
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L.A. artist K Á R Y Y N is a former collaborator of Marina Abramović and one of Björk's inspirations, and her work spans music production, composition, and vocals.

Today, we're premiering a new video titled "ALEPPO," that features home video footage from K Á R Y Y N's time in the Syrian city — she has both Syrian and Armenian heritage, but grew up in the States — in the early 2000s. Sonically, it's a dizzying mesh of digital and human signal. The result is fragmented and nostalgic, characterized by operatic crescendos and electronic distortions.

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The onscreen quote at the beginning of the video poses a question: "What is the difference between the remembering truth and the happening truth?" It's an integral question to be asking now, under an administration that is "post-fact," non-reflective, and unaccountable. The video itself is a meditation on the city of Aleppo, which is caught in a middle of a four-year war — something that's at odds with how K Á R Y Y N remembers it.

“The video is all footage recorded by me between 2000 -2002. I wanted to portray the city the way I see it in my head — bustling and alive, with my family and my friends to show what life was like there," K Á R Y Y N told The FADER via email. "How our family home was always a hub for all my aunts, uncles, cousins and our extended family, a place where people would convene. I have made homage to my family and to a place that holds a huge significance in my heart and identity. There's a whole world in my memories of a place that is now is rubble and deserted and with people who have died or fled since the war and a city which is now in the harshness of the reality of things falling apart or separating, people being misplaced/displaced in the world.”

Check out the premiere of the video for "ALEPPO" down below.

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K Á R Y Y N's double A-side single, Quanta 1, is out now.
K Á R Y Y N’s “ALEPPO” Is A Home Video Homage To The Syrian City