Ran Slavin
Variations (Amud Anan)
A 3 channel video-sound installation. 2016-2017
In Variations (Amud Anan) real and fictional elements freely intertwine reflecting mythology and geo-political tension. Israel’s southern region desert is reintroduced as a breeding ground of security paranoia, liquid reality, mythological and fictional occurrences. In the biblical-mythical sense a pillar of cloud was one of the manifestations of the presence of God in the Torah which appears at the beginning of the Old Testament Bible. According to the Book of Exodus, the pillar of cloud guided the Israelites by day during the Exodus from Egypt and by its manifestation, showing the direction to the promised land in the harsh desert. In 2012 an army defense operation was coined by the same name aka Amud Anan aka Pillar Cloud and was an eight-day military defense operation in the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip. Beginning on 14 November 2012 with the killing of the chief of the Gaza military wing of Hamas and the launch of over 100 rockets at Israel during a 24-hour period. The operation was preceded by a period during which a number of mutual Israeli-Palestinian responsive attacks had taken place. These cloud pillars were looped as visuals on television screens repeatedly forming and odd dissonance between the mythological iconology to the destructive one.
The installation is made of 3 projections, 2 on a wall corner and in the centre of the space a projected smoke column joins floor and ceiling in an endless stream of cloud on a transparent material.
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