A Free Moment continues my research in architecture as conductor of historical memory and a signifier of the possibility of a future, a possibility which is often revealed as a failure.
This research is enriched in 'A Free Moment' with questions stemming from the history of structuralist-materialist cinema.
The piece was shot in a built structure located on a hill in north-east Jerusalem, known as 'Tell el-Ful'. Construction work for King Hussein of Jordan's Summer palace started there in 1966 by the royal Jordanian family. The hill was a site of Jordanian-Israeli battles during the six-day war (1967) and the area was eventually occupied by Israeli forces. The building of the palace was never completed, and the concrete skeleton remains in Israeli territory until this day. The structure is at 840 meters above sea level and is overlooking Jerusalem's old city, the Israeli settlement Pisgat-Ze'ev, Palestinian Authority areas including the suburbs of Ramallah and almost the whole width of the State of Israel, from the dead sea to the mediterranean.
Archeological excavations have revealed remains, in and around the hill, from several historical periods: the Copper age, the Neo-Babylonian, Hasmonean and Roman periods.
Scholars identify the site as Gibeah, in which King Saul built his fortress (1 Samuel 8-31).
The video consists of one pre-programmed robotic shot, an unedited camera movement inside the second floor of the palace. A 35mm film camera is mounted on a unique motion- control head, which is installed on a track dolly. The camera's choreography is composed of three simultaneous movements which start and end at the same moment:
1.Dolly-out: camera moves on tracks laid from North to South
2.Pan: horizontal 360 degrees clockwise revolution
3.Tilt-up: upwards 360 degrees revolution
The shot starts at the northern end of the building and revolves so that at the end of the shot the camera is pointed to the same direction as in the beginning, but is now situated at the southern end of the building.
The video combines medial and contextual concerns. It is an investigation of formal, material and political elements which coincide in a specific recording of a specific site.
The shot is composed following a materialist-structuralist tradition of film making. The duration of the shot equals the length of one film cartridge (400 ft.). The movement is generated as an automated, predetermined procedure, contrary to news coverage, a documentary exposé, or a subjective impression. In face of a rich and subjective texture of histories and narratives which are embedded in the site, the camera performs a minimal robotic choreography generated by a rational procedure which offers the objectivity of the mechanical.
This one-shot video can be regarded as a filmic monument of regal precision, located in a derelict building. The site bears the traces of several civilizations. A bare skeletal concrete structure is the residence of kings, a liminal site of ownership and authorship. The Summer Palace is a potentiality frozen in time. An unprecedented camera movement attempts to revive a forgotten possibility, to make a future with a camera.a
The CDA's archives are operating with the support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund and Artis
