Anna Harel

                               

Refuge​

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Interactive installation and autobiographic film

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Made in an academic setting as the main project in the Master's program in Visual Communications, Bezalel, 2021

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The installation “Refuge” touches on several social aspects such as art as a tool for influencing society, along with personal questions such as self-identity within Israeli society and the question of belonging.

The leitmotif of the work is "Swan Lake", Why? The ballet served as the backdrop of the political upheaval in the Soviet Union, and became etched in my mind as a metaphor for control and manipulation. In August 1991, when the hardline communists tried to topple Gorbachev’s government, TV programs were suspended, and for several days, the only thing broadcast on state TV was a continuous loop of Swan Lake. This broadcast was designed to block public access to real news

The use of works of art, cinema, and communications as tools of manipulation is not an invention of communist rule in the Soviet Union, but a practice that has proven itself throughout history. Sowing fear within a society is a tool of manipulation, which can be controlled and navigated. By activating the fear mechanisms of each group, it can be driven according to principles drawn from mass psychology.

Thus, Tchaikovsky's magical work of art, the lyrical legend that tells of loyalty in love, was forever etched in my memory as a blunt tool of silence and intimidation.

The film is made in Unreal Engine software, the character is an "avatar" of a self-portrait, a digital character sculpted in three dimensions and powered by using face recognition software. This unique technology has enabled new options for autobiographical storytelling, different from Conservative video photography. Using "Avatar" mediates the narrator and allows for distancing from the character, maintaining the visual imagination at the same time. Also, another reason for choosing VR technology at work, is the virtual environment in which the character is located, the virtual environment allows for healthy freedom, convincing hyper-realism that blurs the boundaries between the real world and the world of virtual reality. In this world the laws of physics do not exist and within this safe refuge there is a complete freedom of expression.

The latest Pandemics has demonstrated to us the impact of visual representation, numbers, data, graphs, and a host of ongoing updates from the "battlefield". All of these can be tools of intimidation and control over media and consciousness.

The installation that accompanies the film is made in a medium of immersive interactive projection in space, done in Touch Designer software, using a Kinect camera that detects movement in space and establishes an encounter and interaction of viewers with the mental image of the Pandemics. The image that is supposed to be associated with anxiety and reluctance in the collective consciousness takes on a personal poetic representation and looks like ballet dancers from “Swan Lake” dressed in tulle tutu skirts. Viewers fall into the illusion of "control" over what is happening that is able to "wipe" the image from the screen, but the particles are reborn and surround them again and again.

My goal is to reconnect the digital and the human and material. A gentle link between the virtual and real. I intensify the imagination, as in a children’s book when the children in wartime cannot leave their house, so they open the closet and slide into the enchanted Kingdom of Narnia.

My motivation relates to a personal need to cope with various fears. Thus, my work takes a critical look at the fearmongering in the and a desire to understand and map myself with reference to society.

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