The rest rooms at pickup bars are an intensive underground world. In contrast to the noisy club, the restrooms are the scene on which real events take place. Talks and acts that people are willing to perform at the restrooms differ from their behavior in the outside world. Clubs and bars are there for seduction, whereas the restrooms are used to realize or pseudo-realize one’s fantasies.
The film is about upsetting balances of power that exist between the photographer and the photographed object, male and female, multiple and singular, object and subject. Sela and Amir, as the film’s directors, actively participate in the scene. They seduce the interviewees on the one hand, and on the other hand they turn over their camera to them, thus upsetting the balance of power between the photographer and the photographed.
The film seeks to create a representation of this under-world, its language, its symbols and the tonality characterizing it. The swift encounter in front of the camera resembles the transience in which intimate relations take place. The restrooms serve as a kind of claustrophobic laboratory used to achieve confession and exposure.
The resulting picture reveals the impact of the communications media, the emergence of behavioral stereotypes in front of the camera and the craving for exposure and publicity reminiscent of Reality TV. But more than anything else, it reveals the effects of occupation, terror and militarism as factors delineating the Israeli identity, even in the most private of moments. (2003-2004)
Found on the compilation, "We are All Army" curated by Galit Eilat. The Israeli army is called the people’s army and part of the myth around its glory is the idea of solidarity between the army and the citizens - “We are all army.” This very basic militarism is unprecedented in a state that defines itself as a western democracy. The fact is that there is very little separation in Israel between civil society, the state, and its army...
Found on the DVD "ASPECT" which once again explores new territory, entering a region so culturally conflicted that the very term "Middle East" is disputed as a holdover from colonialism. This issue presents nine artist’s perspectives from both inside and outside of the region. Not only focused on the political, religious, and social dissent, these works ruminate on language, food, ritual, media, power, humor, and beauty. ASPECT; The Chronicle of New Media Art (Volume 14: Middle East). The DVD also features the work with commentary by Roee Rosen.
Hebrew with English subtitles
Catalogue no. 178 File: Hilchot Shchenim #B | Catalogue no. 391 File: Sela, Ruti |
Catalogue no. 392 File: Sela, Ruti | Catalogue no. 457 File: The Archive | Catalogue no. 930 File: Compilations | Catalogue no. 1019 File: Sela, Ruti | Catalogue no. 1244 File: Sela, Ruti
Catalogue no. 1450 (ASPECT)
File: Compilations
The CDA's archives are operating with the support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund and Artis
