Aernout Mik's Raw Footage: War Through Unused Newsreels

Aernout Mik's video installation 'Raw Footage' (39 minutes, two screens) compiles unused footage shot by Reuters and Independent Television News reporters during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. Unlike his earlier staged works like 'Parallel Corners' (2003) and 'Refraction' (2005), which fabricate ambiguous scenarios, 'Raw Footage' presents real but discarded clips that lack the dramatic narrative required by mainstream media. The scenes show civilians adapting to war: children playing, a man jogging through devastation, goats chewing trash while employees go to work, passersby crossing streets under sniper fire. The work challenges the distinction between fiction and truth, highlighting how media narratives construct reality while reminding viewers that the events are not acted. Mik's piece was shown at his MoMA retrospective in 2009 and at the Harn Museum in Gainesville, Florida, as part of 'Project Europa'. The work refuses to take sides, making it impossible to distinguish between adversaries, and emphasizes the banality of contemporary warfare where ethnic extremism erupts among former neighbors. It echoes W.H. Auden's poem 'Musée des Beaux Arts' in depicting how life continues amid catastrophe.