Enter the View – Karam Natour

Enter The View

Enter The View (2021) is an 11-minute video work based on the artist’s ongoing interest in the crucial role played by language in the formation and alteration of identity. Its title combines a wordplay on the word “interview” with a reference to Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void, reflecting the work’s engagement with both language and altered states of perception. A parody of the late-night talk show format, which originated in American television, the work presents the artist as the interviewee, while an actor assumes the role of the host. What begins as a familiar televisual exchange gradually descends into increasingly bizarre and uncomfortable situations, subverting the conventions of the interview format and the expectations of its audience. Inspired by The Lodge from David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, the set transforms the television studio into a psychologically charged environment where the boundaries between performance, reality, and dream begin to blur. Referring to The Eric Andre Show, the work explores the politics of language through alternating dialogues in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. Episodes of sleep paralysis, featuring a night hag, interrupt the interview, while the emergence of the artist’s Jester persona introduces themes of surveillance, power, and transformation. Through humor and discomfort, Enter The View examines the unstable relationship between language, identity, and self-representation.