Zohar Kfir: Points of View
Artist(s):
Title:
- Points of View
Exhibition:
Creation Year:
- 2014
Category:
Artist Statement:
My art practice varies in terms of the themes and media I bring into play. In my process I tend to combine traditional cinematic techniques with interactivity, layering visuals, compressing and expanding time, and fracturing narrative. Thus, I utilize video as the core form of my expression, but my video work has included single-channel experimental work, audio-visual installation, and interactive installations. In my work I deploy non-linear narrative to cover a wide range of topics,
from poetic meditations to documentary interventions, and these serve as a continual inquiry into the nature of our interaction with the environment by utilizing expanded interactivity.
Points of View is an expansion of my work with experimental narrative formats; it is an expanded exploration of non-linear narrative design, depicting documentary-based materials.
Points of View aims to increase exposure to B’Tselem’s important and unique project through the creation of a map-based, database-driven interactive documentary that both situates the footage in its location of origin and creates new narrative threads of meaning from the stories that emerge. Viewers can browse the clips randomly or follow pre-determined video trails that are connected via events and tags. The video trails offer viewers a way to learn more about particular
events or areas, but also allow them to make their own connections—creating non-linear narratives that resist the fixed conclusions that can be provoked by linear documentary filmmaking—and experience life in the West Bank and Gaza from multiple points of view. This work relates to the theme of acting in translation as it brings into play multiple realities and potential truths by revealing unexpected juxtapositions between various kinds of lived experience. Different choices of interaction lead to different emphases, underscoring the multivalent nature of both conflict and quotidian life in the region.
Technical Information:
Points of View is an interactive web documentary based on video footage shot by Palestinians working with B’Tselem’s Camera Distribution Project. It offers an intimate and situated look at life under the Israeli occupation. This project brings these materials to the international public in a manner that is respectful of their content yet innovative enough to provoke a more nuanced form of engagement than conventional documentary; it is an artistic exploration of a complex political issue that raises questions of community engagement, social awareness, and the social and phenomenological shaping of narrative.
