14 Proper Nouns draws on a set of references from Hassan Khan’s seminal work 17 and in AUC. In 2003, Khan constructed a soundproofed one-way-mirrored room in which he sat for four hours every night over two consecutive weeks. Drinking beer and smoking cigarettes he spoke to an audience he could neither see nor hear about his undergraduate years in the early nineties at the American University in Cairo.
Every night, starting from 21 October 2011, and running for two weeks till 3 November, one reference or 'proper noun' from the transcriptions of this 56-hour performative action will serve as subject matter for a discussion between the artist and Nida Ghouse.
Friday 21 October: Funhouse
a year in the house of bliss and loss
Saturday 22 October: Yassin El Tohamy
the munshid who made philosophical poetry as popular as coca-cola
Sunday 23 October: Egyptian TV
strategies learnt from the world's worst television
Monday 24 October: Pulmolar
a cough syrup that bent streets and made asphalt soft
Tuesday 25 October: John Cage
the tapes that came after reading silence
Wednesday 26 October: Attar
daily breakdowns at the theater workshop
Thursday 27 October: Midan Ramsis
paranoia and ecstasy with the crowd
Friday 28 October: Hendrix
a guitar becomes something else
Saturday 29 October: JC Auditorium
auteur cinema and the incredible power of the living moving face
Sunday 30 October: William Blake
how hell was made dense
Monday 31 October: Ard El Golf
making noise in bedrooms and on rooftops
Tuesday 1 November: Sherif
a friendship forged through a shifting lens
Wednesday 2 November: Cairo Atelier
the haunt of the corrupt intellectual
Thursday 3 November: English Literature
a university department with a seminar room
