A Land Voice overed

An abstrasct of a talk given at Tirana Art Lab


A LAND VOICE-OVERED

Israel, and more particularly Jerusalem, is a representative case of a place, whose imaginary dimension often overshadows its real existence.
For centuries on, the Holy Land, Zion or Shalem, were extensively represented visually, often by artists who never visited these actual places. The biblical people of Israel itself and even Abraham the Patriarch, heard of the land and inevitably imagined it before they saw it with their bodily eyes.
Perhaps more than in the imagined place itself, we are interested in the gap that is opened in the moment of encounter between the imagined and the real. How is this gap bridged? which of the perceptions subordinates the other? or perhaps, the two are actually different places who just carry the same name?

In their lecture. Effi & Amir will present examples of this tension between the imagined Israel and the real one. Starting from the Bible, passing through ancient maps and art history (medieval and renaissance), to contemporary art and cinema, they will explore different aspects of this tension and the attempts to resolve it, deconstruct it, or highlight it.
Effi & Amir will show excerpts of their own works as well as of other artists and creators.

The lecture will be concluded with a first-view presentation of their work in progress "When G met Google" - a guided google street tour in the Old City of Jerusalem.

List of works (submitted to changes and depending on artists' consent)
Maps: Psalter, The Clove map, The Vilna Gaon map, Paradise cartography
Art History: Italian renaissance, van der weyden, Durer, Breugel, Carnach, Lieferinks
Drawings: Travelog of John McGregor
Films and video art:
Susan Sontag - Promised Lands
Chris Marker- Description d'un Combat
Nira Pereg - Avraham, Avraham / Sarah, Sarah
Omer Fast
Mushon Zer Aviv - You Are Not here
Amir Yatziv - Pasolini
Effi & Amir - Topsoil (desert stories), Vil Nor, Same River Twice (including left-out scenes)