Film
ARK ANGEL (2024)
5:57 mins
This film reimagines ancient flood myths to critique contemporary capitalism, empire, and exploitation. Inspired by “biblically accurate” angelic imagery from Abrahamic traditions, it merges poetic despair with a vitriolic condemnation of human selfishness and cruelty. The use of AI reflects capitalism’s human-facing yet alienating nature, symbolizing a detachment from human needs and functions. Played on loop, this piece is a relentless, meditative experience meant to provoke action and inspire reflection on systems that contribute to injustice and destruction.
Muslim Surveillance and Mapping Program (2024)
2:13 mins
In this selection from a multi-hour performance over 2 days, I walk the rooftop of my apartment building with a parabolic microphone, live-monitoring distant sounds. As an Arab-American man, the work reenacts and subverts the racialized gaze of programs like the NYPD’s Muslim Surveillance and Mapping Program, exposing the alienation, paranoia, and distortion bred by systemic profiling and the power dynamics of observation.
The parabolic microphone, a tool of amplification and interception, evokes the invasive legacy of such surveillance programs, which mapped and monitored Muslim spaces—from mosques to homes to everyday gatherings. By reclaiming and inverting this act, the performance questions who has the right to observe and who is stripped of privacy under the guise of security. It exposes the dissonance between authority, suspicion, agency, and privacy, while symbolically shedding light on the criminal overreach of law enforcement and intelligence agencies that breach constitutional rights under the pretext of protection. In the U.S., the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” has long been a cornerstone of criminal law, yet all three branches of government have demonstrably failed to uphold this maxim.
In turning the lens outward, the piece invites reflection on how surveillance culture fractures identity, breeds distrust, and distorts perception—challenging viewers to confront their roles within these dynamics. It emphasizes the right to live without presumption, undue suspicion, invasive observation, or harmful, popularly disseminated notions of who a people are or what they represent.
Inspired by Pope L.'s crawl performances and Harun Farocki's Eye/Machine series.
Click here for more information about the program
Departure (2021)
6:21 mins
A film about mankind’s departure from his simple primal origins in communities that once marveled at life’s mysteries and beauty. It juxtaposes this with a postmodern world where consumerism and technology is god. Sourced from documentaries, films, and video databases, the footage conveys a sense of loss, reflecting the shift from an idealized state of nature to an increasingly alienating post-industrial society.
Nameless (2022)
3:52 mins
Nameless is an experimental short film, combining a voice-over with footage captured over several weeks in Chicago’s Lakeview and Loop areas in Spring 2022. The film explores the experience of someone who feels alienated and disconnected from society, expressing themes of misfit identity through shots of isolated spaces and gritty imagery. The disorienting editing—featuring sped-up cuts—mirrors the narrator’s fragmented internal state, while the visual elements, both metaphorical and direct, deepen the somber and introspective tone of the piece.
Cheap Thrills (2021)
8:04 mins
A self-shot, non-fiction journal film that weaves stream-of-consciousness voice-over with observational footage collected across urban commercial and waste spaces. Moving fluidly through store aisles, back alleys, and symbolic objects, the work reflects on capitalism, value, power, and the pursuit of happiness. Through associative montage and metaphor—dice beside lottery hopes, toy swords beside coins—the film exposes the entanglement of personal and systemic struggles. The narration, improvised from journal fragments, mirrors the visual rhythm, offering a melancholic yet sharp meditation on the cyclical nature of production, consumption, and meaning in contemporary life.