Middle East and female representation: Fiction versus Fact

Naturally, the personal journey of displaced artists, and their place of origin, affects the way they are inspired and the work they create. However, as noted by Naficy (2001) these journeys are not merely physical but profoundly philosophical and psychological and above all are journeys of identities, in which old identities are shed new ones are shaped. As a result, a consistent state of tension between their original self and the self in present location is evident.

The spectrum of psychological, cultural, traditional, physical and ideological factors that influence artists’ creativity, is bound by their identity. This paper will explore and describe different forms of represented identity in video arts in terms of how artists' identity constitutes the audio-visual language and forms a subjective lens. This research aims to explore, through theory and practice, a proper audio-visual and presenting style which is expressive of the issues and concepts discussed above by including aesthetic, creative and innovative dimension. First of all, it needs no re-emphasis that this paper focuses exclusively on the relationship between content, form and technique in distinguished videos artworks dealing with such affinity. Furthermore, while these video samples are conceptually similar in content and audio-visual style, they might be different in their production structure and presentation attributes.