EVENT: FIRAS SHEHADEH (MAY 9—22 2025, ONLINE)

The Way of the Future

Single-channel UHD video (color), 2-channel sound, 8’ 02”, 2025, Palestine

created by Firas Shehadeh

Set against the hauntingly desolate backdrop of The Last of Us video game, The Way of the Future follows a lone figure traversing a decayed territory after a long war, where echoes of resistance and displacement reverberate through the hollow ruins. The sound design, deeply rooted in the auditory textures of the attacked country — prayers and drones — brings a dislocated yet familiar reality. As the protagonist moves through these fragmented spaces, their journey becomes an allegory for the ongoing struggle: a fight not only for physical territory but for the survival of identity, memory, and visibility. Blurring the lines between the physical and media landscapes, the film explores a future where the cause transcends borders and occupies the global consciousness, a spectral nation fighting to reclaim existence in a political world order that continuously erases them.

Firas Shehadeh is a Palestinian artist and researcher exploring issues of identity, meaning, and aesthetics in the digital age. His interdisciplinary practice engages with post-colonial effects, technology, and history through the lens of worldbuilding and internet culture. Shehadeh holds a Master of Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. His education also includes studies in conceptual art, video, and architecture in Vienna, Barcelona, and Amman. Investigating topics like colonial legacies, memory, and belonging, Shehadeh creates speculative narratives that reveal unseen structures and realities. His research-focused practice utilizes and subverts the visual languages of new media, examining how technology transforms society’s relationship with knowledge and power. His work, which has been exhibited internationally, offers a critical perspective on the role of the internet and digital imaging in shaping contemporary identities, histories, and ways of world-making.

EVENT: FIRAS SHEHADEH (SEPTEMBER 8—21 2023, ONLINE)

Like An Event In A Dream Dreamt By Another — Rehearsal

Single-channel video (color, sound, narrator: Mamusu Kallon), 14’ 19”, 2023, Palestine

Created by Firas Shehadeh

Part of Shehadeh’s ongoing research into video games and Palestinian youth culture, Like An Event In A Dream Dreamt By Another — Rehearsal combines found-footage of Twitch streamers and custom game mods for Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar Games, 2013). Unpacking video game mods as a form of contemporary archive — and therefore digitizing historic and contemporary architectural sites in addition to seemingly ubiquitous objects — the artwork proposes Los Santos, a virtual replica of Los Angeles, as the biblical “land of milk and honey”.

Firas Shehadeh is a Palestinian artist and researcher exploring issues of identity, meaning, and aesthetics in the digital age. Currently based in Vienna, his interdisciplinary practice engages with post-colonial effects, technology, and history through the lens of worldbuilding and internet culture. Shehadeh holds a Master of Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where he is currently a PhD candidate. His education also includes studies in conceptual art, video, and architecture in Vienna, Barcelona, and Amman. Investigating topics like colonial legacies, memory, and belonging, Shehadeh creates speculative narratives that reveal unseen structures and realities. His research-focused practice utilizes and subverts the visual languages of new media, examining how technology transforms society’s relationship with knowledge and power. His work, which has been exhibited internationally, offers a critical perspective on the role of the internet and digital imaging in shaping contemporary identities, histories, and ways of world-making.