April 1st is the documentation of an action that took place in Abu-Dis (a Palestinian village near Jerusalem), in April 2004 on both sides of the newly built Separation Wall that crosses through the village neighbourhood. It was the group’s most successful event wherein they created a virtual window on both sides of the Wall. Two closed-circuit video cameras were placed at the same point on both sides of the wall. The cameras were connected to projectors that screened, in real time, the view from the other side. Thus a virtual window allowed people on both sides to see each other. The cameras operated one meter from one another, turning surveillance and control technology into a spectacle geared towards getting the attention of the media and the Israeli public to focus on human rights abuse. The event also provided a framework in which to see the Wall with one’s own eyes, to feel the size of the Wall in relation to one’s own body in real time and space – to remove it from the abstraction of television news programmes and newspaper pages.
Visitor’s reactions were surprising. Because the Wall built in Abu-Dis is an example not only of Israelis and Palestinians being cut off from each other, but of a Palestinian community being cut in half, there was an especial intimacy and familiarity between the residents on each side who came to the event. Visitors brought lawn chairs from home and sat with others seen from the other side. They spoke to one another on mobile phones, and reveled at seeing each other’s faces through the 24’ high barrier. It was a spectacle that was unlike others at the Wall; the army was present, but without purpose.
Catalogue no. 364
File: ART & WAR
Catalogue no. 560, 561, 562
File: SERIAL_CASES_1
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