In David Tartakover’s series of photographs, I Am Here, the artist digitally inserted his figure into various events and places. On his body he wears an emergency services vest, yet Tartakover’s vest bears the word “Artist.” The images are press photographs from the Separation Wall in Abu Dis, from Qalqilya, Ras Atiya, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Hebron, always drawn from incidents related to the Occupation. Hebron 180303 depicts an IDF soldier holding his weapon in the foreground. At another level of the photograph, the inscription “Are you Jewish? Yes=life No=death” may be read on the back of a T-shirt. Tartakover’s figure is seen in the background, wearing his “Artist” vest, as if he were a witness to the photographed event not by virtue of his actually being there, but rather due to the fact that he inserts his figure into the photographed event. By positioning himself within various acts taking place around him, Tartakover assumes responsibility: he places himself as both an observer who does not look away from the occurrences and as a witness who brings to us his testimony, motivated by the knowledge that the freedom for individual opinion is not a right, but a duty. Disregard for personal responsibility does not release the individual from responsibility for the actions of the society in which he lives. All the members of the collective share in the responsibility, and they all have the right to doubt and explore whether they want to be a part of it. Refusal to take responsibility for the actions of society and setting oneself apart from it forms an existential threat to that society. Disobedience (resistance), on the other hand, is an attempt to correct society, rather than to undermine it. The conscientious objector functions as an agent of morality who operates for the sake of social change, since obedience contradicts his moral principles. The conscientious objector does not disregard the law, and the collective does not have to acknowledge his rightness. The duty is to acknowledge conscientious objection as part of honoring human dignity and freedom. Disobedience takes place vis-à-vis the leadership of society, when each individual is given the right to protest, via an act of objection, against instructions which contradict his personal moral values.
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