In The Mad Man’s Laughter, Alaa Mansour questions the politics of the circulation of images to engage with the simulacra of the so-called ‘war on terror’ and the ubiquitous surveillance it has since spawned. Exploring the fictitious entities at play in the military-entertainment complex, the film embarks on a journey across artefacts and rules shaped by modalities of power and control. Operating with a form of speculative archaeology, Mansour brings together archival material from US military footage, found media, computer-generated imagery, sounds, and texts. Navigating violences both visible and latent, The Mad Man’s Laughter critiques colonial-militaristic image production and the data that feeds algorithmic biases.

Commissioned and produced by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary for st_age in collaboration with Ashkal Alwan.

Alaa Mansour is a Lebanese artist, film-maker, and archivist whose work focuses on histories of violence and the power of images in the age of necropolitics. She is currently head of visual research for Bidayat magazine, published in Beirut. She was shortlisted for the Han Nefkens Foundation – Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Award 2020.