Omer Fast

A visual and literary companion to Omer Fast's films, In Memory explicates the narrative conceits and theories of documentary and narrative layering that animate the artist's work. Fast (born 1972) is best known for his films CNN Concatenated (2002), The Casting (2007) and Nostalgia (2009).

Omer Fast's video installation The Casting is based on interviews held with a U.S. Army sergeant before his renewed deployment in Iraq. Fast describes the project thus: "During several days he told me two stories which I have interwoven. The first took place in Bavaria and describes the sergeant's relationship with a German girl who loves speed and self-mutilation. The second story takes place outside Baghdad and deals with a bomb on the roadside and a tragic mistake." Fast took these two stories and processed them into a screenplay, which he then had interpreted by actors as a series of silent tableaux. This succinct volume documents these tableaux with numerous color photographs and includes a conversation between the artist and Sven Lütticken, as well as a text by Matthias Michalka.