Ralph Findeisen: Wer Bist Du Wo? (Who are you where?)

Artnet.de - 30 November 2006

In Uriel Orlow’s six minute video Descent a pregnant Israeli woman speaks about her existence as an immigrant in Switzerland (the title is taken from the literal translation of a Hebrew expression for emigration from Israel: Yerida). This work is a poignant example for the raison-d’être of videos, and why they steal classical film the show. It is authentic. It subsumes elements of terror, black humour (cynicism as strategy for survival) and the specters of death. In Switzerland life is calm, too calm. The liveliness of Israel is missed. That place, where after one of many bomb attacks, people joke on the phone about going to collect ‘pieces’, bits of body.
Here everything comes together: Life in the womb, the loss of home, the experience of everyday terror, the guilt-laden safety in exile. It appears, that this identity is created by diverse attributes which arbitrarily take hold of a body. The body as a stage in transit. Perhaps this is in fact a useful interpretation for globalisation. The body doesn’t only travel by plane or information is sent around the globe in abundance, but the body, wherever it finds itself, is also occupied at will by transitory realities. And there is no chance for defence.