The second stage of AlmostReal started to materialise in April 2006 with a series of workshops ‘Video Works’ for the production of new video works by young Lebanon-based artists. The Video Works workshops were held in the premises of Ashkal Alwan, coordinated by filmmaker and video artist Ghassan Salhab. Salhab mentored the 11 selected artists. But in summer 2006, when the workshop programme was already well underway, war broke out. Subsequently some of the participants changed their proposals entirely and conveyed their experiences of their war-afflicted environments into video. The results of the workshops were presented in Beirut in April 2007 during the video festival ‘VidéoAvril’ put together by Ashkal Alwan to promote public appreciation of video work in contemporary Lebanon. After VidéoAvril, stage 2 is being continued through supporting a project by the young composer and independent curator Tarek Atoui. In May 2007, Tarek organised a workshop (in partnership with SHAMS arts centre and Ana Lindt Foundation) which introduced interdisciplinary approaches between digital technology and art making to a group of 20 young artists from the Beirut region. 5 art projects were chosen out of this workshop for further development under the mentorship of prominent Lebanese visual artist Lamia Joreige and curator Sandra Dagher. The resulting 5 media/acoustic/digital installation works will be presented on site specific locations around Beirut, 30 May 2008 in collaboration with the newly established Beirut Art Center. This event will conclude ALMOSTREAL stage 2.

In parallel to the 5 new works, there will also be a a series of new workshops called ‘Bytes & Pieces’ given by Tarek in Amsterdam and Beirut in May 2008. Together with Takuro Mizuta Lippit from STEIM studios in Amsterdam, Tarek has organised 3 workshops as a chance for young artists and electronic engineers to develop work and learn from one another. These workshops are about getting to know and create multidisciplinary projects from installations, performances, music to video works that combine art-making with new technologies. The focus of these workshops is for participants to expand their aesthetic practice through developing new technological tools such as hardware, programming, building and fabricating.