​COLOSSUS (2010)​

Multimedia installation 


Shay Arye Gallery

Tel Aviv, Israel

 

A video ‘river’ flows into the Colossus/”Big Brother” figure like the river that "issues from Eden to water the garden" [Genesis 2:10] of the Zoharic image of divine abundance or grace (shefa) which flows from Ein Sof (infinity) and enriches human reality. However, unlike abundance, in its enlightened, spiritual sense, the river flowing in the installation is a river of excess which puffs up and magnifies the giant with assorted icons and pictographs: among them ones that indicate a threat and warn against danger, such as biohazard, radiation, gas masks, and a skull and crossbones symbol marking hazardous materials, and in response to them—icons symbolizing environment-friendliness such as recycling, YinYang. And the river continues to flow and overfeed the giant with power graphics of major corporations on the web, such as the Internet browser Google Chrome, Apple's multimedia technology Quicktime, logo sites on Facebook, Twitter, and the like. And the heart yearns to balance the horror, finding among them primordial pictographs, such as the Eye of Horus—an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic sign standing for well being, or a monk's hands—a Christian icon symbolizing compassion, etc.

Once you enter the computer/exhibition space, you are caught in the lights, and bound to fall into "white blindness”.

 

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