The CDA's archives are operating with the support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund and Artis
Fear and Might | 00:21:56 (English version)
Tamar Getter , October 2018
processed photos, stills, found footage (including Ryszard Cieslak in class at the Jerzy Grotowski experimental Theater), filmed sequences, paintings and drawings stills. Sound: waves and seagulls, and a Cossacks' song sung by Yoram Gozansky.
text, directing, photos, filming, process sound and editing, Tamar Getter, 2018
►A woman narrator tells seven short stories describing a series of independent situations. Together they form a conceptual-poem sequence that deals with physical postures of fear (freezing in place, trembling, stupefaction, shock, etc.).
►Four stories deal with animals and three with people.
►The text tells and describes pictures on the screen and others that are not visible. The reverse of this is conveyed through additional pictures, at times the same ones newly processed, clearly distorted, which in the way they are made and concatenated affect the preceding or postponing of what the text tells or will tell later.
►Duo sequences form a break between the seven stories. One is a primitive animation made from a single still photograph of a giant tsunami wave crashing on the shore, and the second is sort-of pantomime showing a hand playing with a metal ball. The overall structure, the order of the stories, and their content slowly unravel towards the end.
►Rapid flickering, the overall optical configuration dominating this work, offers some relation to the experience of looking at pictures in terms of a question on meaning: what invites what; What precedes, what delays, what describes, what enables, what remembers what: the pictures the words or the words the pictures.
►The imaginary time of the work, a blend of present, past, and mythical time, stems from this indecisive movement. There is the direct observation present when the text points to a concrete picture that appears on the screen, and then, there are all other speculative spaces, times, and places required by the characterization of the fear postures described.
►As I write stories too, without visuals, it might be proper to say that this video-work reflects how my Imagism works while I am writing a song or a story.
seven stories:
1. LION
2. HARE AND ACORN
3. August Sander, Victim of Persecution
4. THE EAGLE AND THE SNAKE
5. AURORA
6. ISAAC AND THE COSSACKS
7. GRANDPA
all titles on screen:
1. Fear and Might
2. To anonymous woman, victim of persecution 1938
To Isaac Babel 1940
To Ahed Tamimi 2018
3. Tamar Getter 2018
4. 1. LION
5. The paws:- each claw a truncated turret
6. The skin
7. its wrinkles
8. the muscles and the bones seen through
9. The fat, the hair
10. He squats, plainly, every part of his body - full in sight
11. A formidable cat
12. Yet, not this causes my pupils to contract
13. It is a panic apart of his presence
14. growing the pupils smaller and smaller
15. He – he is all watch and ambush
16. But that too is not the thing
17. It is the loom: my pupils so hard by his
18. That's the thing
19. When his black twin rhombi transfix my black balls
20. His eyelids fixt up on _ _ my own - drop-off
21. me, along with
22. into the blackout behind
23. where, bodiless and boundless, he expanses in me
24. My eyes are lion-loaded
25. 2. HARE AND ACORN
26. I saw her
27. from the end of my days
28. Her two front teeth were very brown
29. Her claws too were brown
30. The brown acorn, rotten-brown inside too,
was pinched between her teeth and claws
31. The teeth, claws and acorn were hardly distinct
32. They all shined as if polished, and shivered in terrible speed
33. The fluffy fur shivered with it. It was brown, all of it
34. 3. August Sander
35. Victim of Persecution, ca, 1938
Gelatin silver Print
25 x 17 cm.
Edition of 12
36. Like most women, even if never schooled or skilled facing the cameras
37. she can, during the idle shooting time, fully stop her brain-work
38. like a cobra facing fakir, or like a fakir facing a cobra
39. In these happy moments free of thought
40. she shocks the entire worn-out machinery
41. A mighty heart rises _ _ bitter
42. It knows its fleeting might
43. She would not scold a soul, never slander, never denounce, never curse
44. If she were to ride, her seat was a horse
45. A beautiful horse
46. an English-Arabic Horse, once a Circus-Horse, perhaps…
47. and she , as chief-jockey, was red-skinned
48. …her glorious mustache – white
49. 4. THE EAGLE AND THE SNAKE
50. Soaring to heights with his prey, he got bitten
51. Tail-spinning, he crashed hitting the ground with a bang
52. 5. AURORA
53. While the serpent was plotting to swallow the eagle
54. The doe screeched as she was crouching in labor
55. Her womb was too narrow and blocked
56. The vulva too, was locked
57. A passing dragon-snake bit her
58. Once the vulva relaxed – she delivered!
59. A moment too early, or one too late
60. The vulva would have shut, the fawn'd been dead, and the doe too, dead
61. She is Aurora
62. 6. ISAAC AND THE COSSACKS
63. Great joy tonight
64. From the end of my days
65. Had there been no hares infesting my drawers
66. Had the eagle heart not been exalted
67. Had the heart of Sander's girl been not downcast forever
68. Had the fawn been not bitten into life
69. how'd I… what now, do I remember?
70. No, the Babel story I cannot recall
71. But the feel… the effort… what's it to win the Cossacks' heart
72. and the price
73. to murder for sport
74. to slaughter a goose with bare hands
75. to seem just like one of the guys
76. sport was the small part of it, the short…
77. slaughtering, that is…
78. horrendous as much as it was
79. but what's to spare with sports?
80. the effort to be sportive - - -
81. before and after
82. this was nasty
83. it implied that Cossacks were not murdering sportily
84. they murder
85. and then, sing and dance
86. fat chance for Isaac to have succeeded
87. "Blind Cow" was the favorite game
88. of Isaac's jailers
89. to ease off the real tortures
90. but his eyes remained clear
91. and his mouth corners
92. a kiss
93. When asked for his last request before being executed
94. he said: Let me finish my work
95. Over rivers of blood
96. and mountains of corpses
97. Commander Semyon Budyonny raised up - up – up
98. and became a star
99. 7. GRANDPA
100. Yoram Gozansky sings the first two stanzas of the Bank"i version
101. At the foot of my grandpa's hanged body,
I leaf through my urine-stained Babel book
102. …the fields, the heavens, the sun, the moon, the clouds, and the atrocities
103. "My First Goose" - - soiled… how very much did Babel want...
104. ...wanted - - with the good guys - - who all failed
- - and massacred many - -
105. My grandpa too - - - wanted -
106. Had we not drown already in the erotics of destruction – we shall have been
drowned
107. If there had been no lion to have loaded my eyes with
108. If there had been no hares to have dominated my desk
109. Had sander's girl not been silent
110. Had the eagle not lifted his dinner to the heights – and crashed
111. Had the dragon not delivered a fawn
112. Had the dawn not raised always
113. Could I see the vast view?
114. "Such as the one cast at the floors of my eyes,
like a gorgeous pile of waste - - -"
The CDA's archives are operating with the support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund and Artis
Fear and Might | 00:21:56 (English version)
Tamar Getter , October 2018
processed photos, stills, found footage (including Ryszard Cieslak in class at the Jerzy Grotowski experimental Theater), filmed sequences, paintings and drawings stills. Sound: waves and seagulls, and a Cossacks' song sung by Yoram Gozansky.
text, directing, photos, filming, process sound and editing, Tamar Getter, 2018
►A woman narrator tells seven short stories describing a series of independent situations. Together they form a conceptual-poem sequence that deals with physical postures of fear (freezing in place, trembling, stupefaction, shock, etc.).
►Four stories deal with animals and three with people.
►The text tells and describes pictures on the screen and others that are not visible. The reverse of this is conveyed through additional pictures, at times the same ones newly processed, clearly distorted, which in the way they are made and concatenated affect the preceding or postponing of what the text tells or will tell later.
►Duo sequences form a break between the seven stories. One is a primitive animation made from a single still photograph of a giant tsunami wave crashing on the shore, and the second is sort-of pantomime showing a hand playing with a metal ball. The overall structure, the order of the stories, and their content slowly unravel towards the end.
►Rapid flickering, the overall optical configuration dominating this work, offers some relation to the experience of looking at pictures in terms of a question on meaning: what invites what; What precedes, what delays, what describes, what enables, what remembers what: the pictures the words or the words the pictures.
►The imaginary time of the work, a blend of present, past, and mythical time, stems from this indecisive movement. There is the direct observation present when the text points to a concrete picture that appears on the screen, and then, there are all other speculative spaces, times, and places required by the characterization of the fear postures described.
►As I write stories too, without visuals, it might be proper to say that this video-work reflects how my Imagism works while I am writing a song or a story.
seven stories:
1. LION
2. HARE AND ACORN
3. August Sander, Victim of Persecution
4. THE EAGLE AND THE SNAKE
5. AURORA
6. ISAAC AND THE COSSACKS
7. GRANDPA
all titles on screen:
1. Fear and Might
2. To anonymous woman, victim of persecution 1938
To Isaac Babel 1940
To Ahed Tamimi 2018
3. Tamar Getter 2018
4. 1. LION
5. The paws:- each claw a truncated turret
6. The skin
7. its wrinkles
8. the muscles and the bones seen through
9. The fat, the hair
10. He squats, plainly, every part of his body - full in sight
11. A formidable cat
12. Yet, not this causes my pupils to contract
13. It is a panic apart of his presence
14. growing the pupils smaller and smaller
15. He – he is all watch and ambush
16. But that too is not the thing
17. It is the loom: my pupils so hard by his
18. That's the thing
19. When his black twin rhombi transfix my black balls
20. His eyelids fixt up on _ _ my own - drop-off
21. me, along with
22. into the blackout behind
23. where, bodiless and boundless, he expanses in me
24. My eyes are lion-loaded
25. 2. HARE AND ACORN
26. I saw her
27. from the end of my days
28. Her two front teeth were very brown
29. Her claws too were brown
30. The brown acorn, rotten-brown inside too,
was pinched between her teeth and claws
31. The teeth, claws and acorn were hardly distinct
32. They all shined as if polished, and shivered in terrible speed
33. The fluffy fur shivered with it. It was brown, all of it
34. 3. August Sander
35. Victim of Persecution, ca, 1938
Gelatin silver Print
25 x 17 cm.
Edition of 12
36. Like most women, even if never schooled or skilled facing the cameras
37. she can, during the idle shooting time, fully stop her brain-work
38. like a cobra facing fakir, or like a fakir facing a cobra
39. In these happy moments free of thought
40. she shocks the entire worn-out machinery
41. A mighty heart rises _ _ bitter
42. It knows its fleeting might
43. She would not scold a soul, never slander, never denounce, never curse
44. If she were to ride, her seat was a horse
45. A beautiful horse
46. an English-Arabic Horse, once a Circus-Horse, perhaps…
47. and she , as chief-jockey, was red-skinned
48. …her glorious mustache – white
49. 4. THE EAGLE AND THE SNAKE
50. Soaring to heights with his prey, he got bitten
51. Tail-spinning, he crashed hitting the ground with a bang
52. 5. AURORA
53. While the serpent was plotting to swallow the eagle
54. The doe screeched as she was crouching in labor
55. Her womb was too narrow and blocked
56. The vulva too, was locked
57. A passing dragon-snake bit her
58. Once the vulva relaxed – she delivered!
59. A moment too early, or one too late
60. The vulva would have shut, the fawn'd been dead, and the doe too, dead
61. She is Aurora
62. 6. ISAAC AND THE COSSACKS
63. Great joy tonight
64. From the end of my days
65. Had there been no hares infesting my drawers
66. Had the eagle heart not been exalted
67. Had the heart of Sander's girl been not downcast forever
68. Had the fawn been not bitten into life
69. how'd I… what now, do I remember?
70. No, the Babel story I cannot recall
71. But the feel… the effort… what's it to win the Cossacks' heart
72. and the price
73. to murder for sport
74. to slaughter a goose with bare hands
75. to seem just like one of the guys
76. sport was the small part of it, the short…
77. slaughtering, that is…
78. horrendous as much as it was
79. but what's to spare with sports?
80. the effort to be sportive - - -
81. before and after
82. this was nasty
83. it implied that Cossacks were not murdering sportily
84. they murder
85. and then, sing and dance
86. fat chance for Isaac to have succeeded
87. "Blind Cow" was the favorite game
88. of Isaac's jailers
89. to ease off the real tortures
90. but his eyes remained clear
91. and his mouth corners
92. a kiss
93. When asked for his last request before being executed
94. he said: Let me finish my work
95. Over rivers of blood
96. and mountains of corpses
97. Commander Semyon Budyonny raised up - up – up
98. and became a star
99. 7. GRANDPA
100. Yoram Gozansky sings the first two stanzas of the Bank"i version
101. At the foot of my grandpa's hanged body,
I leaf through my urine-stained Babel book
102. …the fields, the heavens, the sun, the moon, the clouds, and the atrocities
103. "My First Goose" - - soiled… how very much did Babel want...
104. ...wanted - - with the good guys - - who all failed
- - and massacred many - -
105. My grandpa too - - - wanted -
106. Had we not drown already in the erotics of destruction – we shall have been
drowned
107. If there had been no lion to have loaded my eyes with
108. If there had been no hares to have dominated my desk
109. Had sander's girl not been silent
110. Had the eagle not lifted his dinner to the heights – and crashed
111. Had the dragon not delivered a fawn
112. Had the dawn not raised always
113. Could I see the vast view?
114. "Such as the one cast at the floors of my eyes,
like a gorgeous pile of waste - - -"
The CDA's archives are operating with the support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund and Artis
The CDA's archives are operating with the support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund and Artis