Born 1981, Israel
2004 / BFA, Fine Art Department,
Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design,
Jerusalem

Ayelet Ben Dor in conversation with Reuven Israel:
 
 
Reuven: We studied together at Bezalel, after graduation we shared a studio, and
during as well as after Bezalel you have always painted, and now you don’t
paint anymore. Why did you stop?
 
 
 
Ayelet: Over two years ago I have started making videos for YouTube and I felt
good about it. My paintings were becoming too crowded and had too
many details in them, and I couldn’t stop them from collapsing. The video
gives me a space in time that allows a better distribution of the load.
 
 
R: What are you working on at the moment?
 
A: I am making a clip for a song by the metal band Barbara. I build objects,
paint and create animations, but eventually it is all meant to go into a three
minutes video. The objects are mostly made of cardboard, newspapers and
masking take. They are exhibited just like I want them to be, only in the
camera’s frame. They will not be exhibited afterwards, there is no need for
them to exist in the physical space as well.
 
R: The images appearing in your clips are related to metal culture, Satanism and
so on. Although in classic metal it is more about men wearing leather and sexy
women, with you it is all about perversions. That is a non conformist approach
to a world that has very clear rules.
 
A: I am drawn to that world, but my position is unavoidably that of an
outsider. It is a masculine world, one that I, as a woman, don’t really have a
place in. Metal images always come from above; their appeal is aggressive,
somewhat superficial. Masculine aggression is usually straightforward. I am
trying to come from below, from the damaged or the perverse, and achieve
the same level of allure through the opposite action.
 
I once read an interesting claim in an article that discussed shamanism
among other things, that in order to charm, the shaman exposes the
mechanisms that produce the magic, in a controlled manner of course, one
that only reveals what needs to be exposed. I liked that; I think perhaps
that is what I am drawn to. A seductive object will immediately expose its
flaws, its internal mechanism, in order to produce a new type of magic,
one that is not based on illusion but rather on controlled exposure. That
is why the fragmentation is also important in the work. Each frame stands
alone. I try to reveal almost everything to the viewer: the manner in which
the animation is comprised of single frames, the fact that the objects are
made by hand of cheap materials, the “special effects” obtained in the most
primitive ways.
 
Somewhere else I have read that music that includes noise as part of
its structure is music that confronts its “abject”, in the sense coined by
Kristeva. Noise and music come from the same source and noise is the
sounds exuded from music. Even before I have read that article the images
that came to my mind while I was listening to the music I work with were
borderline and scotophilic images. I like discovering that academic articles
have a sort of a healthy intuitive logic to them.
 
 
R: You like to wander in the peripheral areas of art: Art Brut, amateurish looking
movies, things extracted from the mainstream which have a sort of a shift in
them. Your paintings also had a combination of amateurish appearance and the
semblance of what is considered “high” painting
 
A: I get off making things with immediate, available materials, sort of like
punk, and using them in order to convey what I want. The work is
laborious and slow, but they have a sense of directness, that you can build
something without specializing in a unique technique, without even having to be good at something. All you need are old newspapers and
masking tape and you can create anything.
 
R: What is the connection between the different scenes in your latest movie?
 
A: For me the three scenes are a repetition of the same action. All three have
images of power or seduction that were spoiled. The spoilage is exposed
right from the start, and through that spoilage these images receive a new,
foreign, deviant function, which charges them with a different type of
power. Creating mythology is possible if you persevere.

 
 
[Reuven Israel is an artist and a friend].