Kabul: Selections

Kabul: Selections, the third part of Kabul: Partial Reconstructions, investigates the politics of choice during Afghanistan’s first general election, the presidential election of 2004, through video footage of election preparations, voters at the polls, and interviews in the wake of initial reports. The moment of the election and the choices made by politicians and voters in that moment are explored both in the immediacy of election day and also from the retrospective perspective that marks that day as the turning point when trust in the government began to erode, the “open moment” (a period when it is possible to build a completely new system in the wake of disaster) began to close, and the process of post-war reconstruction commenced a decisive downward spiral.

The interactive installation prototype of Kabul: Selections premiered in fall 2006 as part of the Underfire exhibition in Chicago. The online version of the offline prototype launched in winter 2007/8. Both versions included a viewer poll (on ballot cards in the physical installation, and an online form in the web version) that asked viewers a series of multiple-choice questions about their voting habits and feelings around elections.