1
|
|
2 |
:::Consciousness
of
Habits:::
Nurit Bar-Shai &
Rami Maymon
The story of this
absent work of art will be narrated
through a set of six clips, tiny reproductions, that completely fail to
convey its most powerful aspect: a gripping draw. Shocking, when we
remember that this is a 45-minute long, dialog-free, static-camera
one-shot video piece. It opens with a perfectly leveled overview frame
of a set dinner table, and it stays on this frame for the duration,
like in early-cinema films that simply recorded a theatrical play. A
waiter and
two figures, of whom only hands, sleeves’ edges, and hairlines are
visible, commence their activities, which lie, in hindsight, somewhere
between ritual, performance, and art. This assertion is made
extraordinary by the fact that they, and their documented activity, are
not. Nothing is monumental or dramatic about this work, and nearly
nothing is out of the ordinary: We are simply watching a man and a
woman credibly enjoying a meal in real time, just as we would
people-watching at a restaurant, only from a different vantage point,
and with one added twist: equipped with a personal marker, each
participant meticulously records the positions of the dishes he or she
moved, by carefully tracing their perimeters on the white tablecloth.
|