Lights Camera (Inter)action Research Exercise
Einat Amir:
Einat Amir is an Israeli artist, specialising in video installations and live performance art. She was born in Jerusalem, Israel and currently resides in Tel Aviv (the capitol of Israel).
Amir’s website states her ‘works are a research of human interactions that explore the possibilities inherent in everyday communication between people’, and goes on to explain that she creates installations like these to combine the use of authenticity, fabrication, and manipulation.
The purpose of Amir’s works are to research human emotions and interactions with one another.
Below I have inserted a picture of one of her installations ‘Coming Soon Near You’. Amir created a living room set, that once installed into art galleries, invited one person per day to bring in videos (on DVDs, VHS tapes) to watch (people can register in advance to be the selected person of the day).
Visitors to the gallery are welcome to sit and join in watching the content. Part of the purpose of the exhibition is for members to ‘present their choices of moving images, and also to present themselves’, allowing them to communicate part of themselves to the public.
One of Amir’s more verbal communication based installations is ‘Enough About You’. The performance consisted of emotional encounters between two complete strangers, controlled and guided by a set of pre-recorded directions. The performance set included five sound-sound-proof units with glass fronts in which two strangers would enter together after being selected by the host. Only 20 people would be allowed in the room at a time and those not selected to enter the sound proof units would stand and observe the first interactions of these strangers.
Video: https://www.einatamir.com/project-2
Amir also works in video as an art medium. She has a number of video works presented on her website, but the one that stood out to me the most was “________ Please”. Which was listed as an ongoing work of hers. Since 2009, Amir has been documenting performances of herself and a local actor to perform with her in the local language. Travelling the world, Amir is is able to create a diverse range of performances. The instructions listed on the website are as follow: ‘Amir and the chosen actor are walking arm in arm among the opening’s crowd. The actor converses with the guests, while Amir remains in complete silence. These performances are unscripted – a total improvisation. The actors is always instructed to say whatever he wants, and to behave in any way he likes, with only one rule – he needs to refer to himself as “the art work”, and to Amir, who clings to his arm, as “The Artist” who created him.’
This in particular stood out to me as Amir was allowing someone who is essentially a stranger, to have complete control over the art. This level of interactivity was something I hadn’t exactly seen before. There was interactivity both with audiences, but also interpersonal interaction between Amir and the hired actor. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen interaction like this between an artist and their work.
Each of Amir’s art pieces are unique, and each have a continuous theme of communication. Whether it be blatantly obvious and clear communication from person to person, or communication of personality through visuals. I really enjoy how involved she allows people to be in her work, she uses tactile, non tactile and sustained interaction which I think is really interesting as she’s able to maintain attention through a variety of forms of interaction.
I think what i’ve taken from doing some research on Einat Amir is that I’d like to maybe look at combining multiple types of interaction, most likely tactile and sustained as I think it would be interesting involving people in the interactive art.