H2

Cut down to 16mm from a 35mm trailer for the movie Shaft, the slowed down voice, gunshot explosions and lsaac Hayes' iconic music become barely recognisable and monstrous. The arbitrary framing provides glimpses of the edges of faces, fleeting urban scenes, partial text, all rendered in cyan negative in a kind of psycho-dramatic abstraction, all the more unsettling than Gordon Parks's originating gangster populated dystopia. It is a reminder of how, by simply repositioning the frame, extant material can be transformed.

Wave of bombings across Iraq ahead of elections

The people of Iraq have also endured bombings but on a larger scale. There are media reports saying up to thirty-one people were killed in dozens of separate explosions across different Iraqi provinces including two blasts at a checkpoint at Baghdad international airport.

This comes just days before provincial elections across Iraq, the first ballot since the withdrawal of US troops at the end of 2011. Although it is unclear who carried out the attacks different factions are increasingly stoking the fire as they vie for political power in the upcoming elections. Tawar Razaghi spoke to Senior Research Fellow, Dr Benjamin Isakhan, at the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University.