In the work “Compressed Ceramic Powder” (The Battle in the Orchard), Amir Yatziv documented a group of Israeli soldiers describing their last moments in the fight, just before their own deaths. This is the ultimate soldier fantasy: dying in a battle, becoming a hero and finally being interviewed about it. But in this fight they use bullets made of compressed ceramic powder (to simulate) instead of real ones. The work creates a hyperreality in which soldiers can describe their own deaths, and shape the myth of their bravery according to a well known model shaped by the myth of self-sacrifice that is at the core of Israeli narrative. The soldiers telling the happenings of their own deaths allows for a new, improved version of this myth, given from a first-hand witness.
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