Participating Artists
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Disembodying the National Army Tune, 2001, steel pole, speaker, sound, 400 x 50 x 50 cm, sound composition: Keren Rosembaum, voice: Noa Frenkel, courtesy the artist
Yael Bartana
Yael Bartana's work is mainly focused on video art. In many instances, her works attempt to examine the question of identity in general and in Israeli society in particular, while bespeaking a continuous concern with mourning and memory - profound emotional states that cannot be circumscribed within predetermined ceremonial or temporal frameworks. This work is somewhat unusual, since it is a sound installation that commands the surrounding space. The installation consists of a loudspeaker connected to a metal pole containing a hidden sensor, which detects the viewer's presence. The sensor activates a mechanism that causes the loudspeaker to move up and down the metal pole, while the audio system plays a tune reminiscent of the IDF's national military anthem - which is usually played at important military and state events, including funerals and memorials. Despite its clear affinity with the national military anthem, however, the work is in fact an original vocal composition, performed by a woman's voice. The series of intentional disruptions through which this work was created - the fact that the composition is similar yet distinct, vocal rather than instrumental, and performed by a woman rather than a man - creates a hybrid situation. It is a simulacrum that enfolds within it a critical stance, ridicule, manipulation and even compassion. The fact that the tune is played over and over again in a loop is similarly related to an underlying existential state; to the fact that we are surrounded by illogical and merciless death, which is mediated and marketed for us by a variety of means.
Born in Afula, Israel, 1970; lives and works in Tel Aviv and Amsterdam
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