Ran Slavin’s Paradise Now (Vol 2) is a site-specific video and sound installation in the MUZA Eretz Israel Museum in an arched stone space that conjures medieval presence. According to Slavin it represents something of a ritual, a perplexion with oppositions, differing speeds of movement, intangibility, and amorphic environments. Paradise Now (Vol 2) emits an ethereal sensation found in dream-states and hypnosis, or alternate realties”.
Setup with two different screening medias, the back screen projects fluid landscapes reminiscent of traditional but far from recognizable east Asian ink drawings caught in fast changing strokes. Slavin bases these images on scans of coffee stains picked off an espresso machine, later rendered by Artificial Intelligent software to produce sequences of additive motion data. The front projection depicts a small draped human figure draped in canvas cloth: a flickering holographic shaman, a projection of a digital entity, roaming in virtuality free of state, border identity and gender. The name of this figure is NoveryOne (Novery1), a compound of no one and everyone, insinuating a dysfunctional commonality, resulting in a null, or a character code off a sci fi film, it is an avatar, a ghost, a projection from a different realm, Novery1 conducts a slow-motion asana in the physical, digital and mental space of the installation while physically hovering with visual effects of a holographic screening. Paradise Now (Vol 2) explores the intersection of the post human figure in a processed landscape via digital media- while readdressing the interrelationship of spiritual and virtual.
The works soundtrack is the track Time Regained, from Slavin’s recently released 17th studio album Oolong: Ambient Works on Mille Plateaux in Frankfurt.
Back screen: 350cm diameter. Screening, paint, wood. Front screen: LED fan. 95cm diameter. 2 active sound speakers and amplifier
