Shira Bashya Barak
Visit Report, 2016
Visit Report is an installation assembled from two works. One is a video (1”40 loop) projected all over the space's main wall. A bit far from it, around a different wall, lies a setup of sculptures: on the wall itself - a night lamp, a life-size cast of a smiling woman's head, her eyes closed, lying on a pillow and underneath it, on the floor, a table-like object.
The video starts with a close up on a woman's eyes. As the camera slowly gains distance from the eyes, a smiling face appears. The backwards movement continues in revealing the space in which the figure lies- it’s lying in a bed, next to eight more figures in the same posture.
The whole ‘set’ is made of white wax, sculpted using various methods - molding and casting, adding, removing and kneading.
Visit Report is an attempt to examine the relationship between sculpture and video. The literary image which lies at the core of the work - women in bed holding a smile, despite being made of the same material- wax, translates differently as it appears in different mediums. One of the main assumptions regarding video is that the medium enables, somewhat easily, a sense of identification. The video work challenges that inherent quality of the medium, while trying to bring about a sense of identification with sculpted figures.
wax, plaster, metal, video projection 1"40, loop
