At first glance, everything seems natural about Alona Rodeh’s The Resurrection of Dead Masters. An aluminum and glass door is set into one of the walls. The kind of door we are used to seeing in storefronts, it appears surprising when placed at an exhibition hall. When we get close to it we realize it leads to a short, narrow corridor, at the end of which is another, iron door, kept shut with locks and chains. Thrash-metal music can be heard beyond this hybrid structure, suggesting that it is playing at an intense volume in the space the lies beyond the doors. Suddenly a strong knock comes from behind the inner door, shaking its chains as if someone (or something) is desperately trying to break out, crying for help. We realize that, more than we wish to see what is taking place inside, whatever is inside wishes to get out, threatening to break open the door, and flood the space in which we stand. Rodeh’s The Resurrection of Dead Masters continues her investigation of the interrelations between sculpting and the perception of space on the one hand, and music and sound on the other—at times complementing each other, at other times seeking to break each other apart.
Life is not separate from its form, which often presents itself as free and independent. And yet we live in a society supervised by a technology that is ingrained in our habitus. The tyranny of the normal is both all-encompassing and convenient: it anesthetizes us in a network of false mirrors, long based on a state of emergency, drawing our social limits and duties. Its power lies in its repetitiveness. Under such conditions, the only option for living is transgression: the only weapon we have against passivity and our insignificance. Actions, methods, and processes are not facts but living possibilities. What is at stake is thus vitality itself.
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