Room 42

THE STONE AND THE ANIMAL BONES

The work process and the materialization of Code No. 42: The Stone and the Animal Bones, curated by Thomas Krinzinger, have been ongoing for nearly three years.

Over this period, several key activities have taken place—activities inherent to the nature of my work within the Liquid Desert space. These included a prolonged and intensive process of developing the specific underground code from the subconscious sphere, culminating in the materialization of Code Room No. 42 from the desert site into a physical exhibition, to be presented at a museum in Vienna.

The process included meetings and discussions around several working and conceptual directions related to the nature and significance of this code within the Liquid Desert project site, which exists as a virtual and conceptual space in the Negev Desert. The project addresses the emergence of repressed life materials and their surfacing through a body of unique physical works.

The working principle began with a focus on a specific code that was inherently connected to the museum and to the history of the city in which it is located, alongside time spent in a parallel conceptual room at the site. Over this extended period, significant working materials and relevant content emerged, both from my side and from that of the curator, Krinzinger.

ACTIONS

ADAM-HAYA

The Adam/Haya action is one of the key actions I have been performing in the Negev Desert over the past few years. A shed/tent/structure was physically erected at the project site, serving as a metaphorical entrance to the collective subconscious sphere represented by its rooms.

A trail camera is positioned in the field for an undetermined period of time. For me, it functions as a data storage device, collecting daily documentation of whatever occurs around the aforementioned structure. This includes the animals inhabiting the area—jackals, wolves, wild boar, and hyenas. Over the years, I photographed them using a night camera, but the trail camera now transmits a continuous stream of live data from the site to its parallel space in my studio.

These wild animals appear every few days; the live night scenes constitute the essence of my dialogue with the collective subconscious field. Their wanderings, the devouring of weaker animals, the carrying of prey, and territorial skirmishes in the open space are central to my focus in the Adam/Haya series.

The human in the guise of the animal, and the animal in the guise of the human—wandering around the entrance to the subconscious—form the motivation for my activity, conducted in the field over several years. Encounters at the Edge of Knowing are the core actions carried out at the site of the Liquid Desert project in the Negev Desert.