In my performances I regard someone amongst my audience with the expectation that this person will look back at me and that our gazes will alternate as an undaunted line which has lost its original point of departure. A line is an initial component of a visual composition and in my performance-art where people are involved it is the gaze which is this component.

One’s sight is a line of motion in space. A line drawn from one person’s gaze to another is deciphered by the other onlookers. So when, in my performance, all of the audience’s gazes will have been drawn to the undaunted line between the two persons, then this could be compared to a composition in a painting by Giotto where all painted eyes, of angels and disciples, from whichever direction, look to the Madonna and Child. When an artist conducts the viewers` eyes towards one image, on the canvas or in the performance space, it is as if the image is being repeatedly presented and thus it is very much like stating that it must not be underestimated. Yes indeed, this moment, in the performance, is perfect in unity and symmetry of composition, real-life circumstance in which the mere gaze is being celebrated.

I hold the gaze, between us, until it is registered in my audience’s conscience as a memorable image. And when that moment has elapsed, I will prolong it for one second longer until in each one’s mind the intuition will arise that it is time to evolve towards another image. At this very interval, when it will inevitably have occurred that this gaze must forerun another situation, then each one will invert her or his gaze inward and generate the next image which will bear one`s personal input in the sequence of the performance.

A gaze, as the line, is only meaningful when someone has claimed it: a line drawn by a person’s gaze to another person is thickened with the mark of one’s experiences and dreams; views directed beyond the ceiling are as imaginative as they are remote; shut eyes, blurred sight, blinking eyes are introverted regards. There are also the positions in which one’s own body disrupts vision. I recall these visual instances from childhood, as when the palm of my hand covers one of my eyes and when my head is suspended between my legs. Perhaps these two are the simpler visions; when viewing somebody enacting them we can know, to some degree, what their experience is like.

So what of the images that cross the young man’s or woman’s mind, in my performance, when their gaze meets mine; what is aroused in each ones mind when the gaze is prolonged. No matter what the answers are, the individuals in the audience are the sole owners of their thoughts which will remain an un-divulged part of the web of the performance images.

I compose my performance-art with objects, few in number, my voice enunciations, texts and audience. I arrange the audience so that individuals are seated within differing distances and angles to each other; I tend to move the audience, as a part of the performance, thereby exposing them to other angles of vision. The location will be a space which I searched for and found suited.

Tearing Hymn*

Three piles of synthetic blankets decorated with large multi-colored flowers, thrown as if a miniature on the floor of a public bomb shelter, were fluffy and soft even to the touch of one’s eyes. The florescent lights were dim and a yellow beam of light from the toilet was making the fabric seem more carved and somewhat pastoral looking. I gazed at the blankets and then I gazed at the space in between me and the blankets; I gazed at the audience who were alternating gazes between me and the blankets. I strode slow and hesitant; I traced the small distance back and forth from the piled blankets to the asymmetric arrangement of the audience. I made an effort to see each one of the present persons; they were forty-five at most, and I never lost hold of the sight of my audience. Each one was experimenting, searching for the best linear strategy to see, understand and hopefully to experience so their eyes were aligned towards me and to the blankets and mine were aligned towards them and to the blankets.

When I finally did stand by the three piles, I bent slightly on one knee and turned my back to the people and then setting my chest towards them I swayed my head, again, and looked at them. Now reclining I set myself forward and drew my fingers out and into the soft fabric. In delicate but defined motions of my hands, I shaped three small forms that resembled three small bodies, lying, enveloped inside the flowered blankets. When done, I gazed first at the audience; with a tilt of my head and my sight blurred I regarded the space; again I gazed at the audience with my eyes shut.

The eyes enthrall a total experience without or prior to extending one’s body into any motion. A place, before it has been entered, will be assessed with one’s eyes while considering one’s bodily physical values: size, weight, agility, strength. When one is looking at a location there is an inevitable consideration of movement possibilities within the dimensions of the location and a taking into account of its content; how one can run across, stride to its center, turn, lie down and lean. It is a sight which enthralls the total experience of motion; its momentum, direction and angles. This capacity of our vision which I call “minimal movement with maximum expression” can attain so much movement even without extending the body into energetic physical activity. The entire work accomplished by eyes is total even before any other external organ has moved.

When looking at a figurative painting, photograph or video, the gazes of the figures we observe conduct our eyes through the two dimensional format. The viewer’s eyes extract movement and emotions from the relative sizes, angles, proximity of the figures in relation to each other and to the virtual space which they are in. In transferring my painterly notions to the three-dimensional space and time I have added an audience and in doing so I enticed them into becoming active participants in an enactment of their subjective thoughts. It is no longer only a didactic understanding of a common experience but a situation where your subjective preferences and deterrence will also be aroused. In looking around one will have notice the varying slight positions, a forward tilt of a torso, a rounded back with withdrawn eyes, of one’s fellow audience; a gaze, even so subtle, in a given moment in the performance, will have become a part of a situation.

I create with the aim of making my audience visible to themselves; individuals who will become more conscious of the idea that each one’s point of view is a component of someone else’s gaze.

*Tearing Hymn – was performed in a public bomb shelter in Tel Aviv, in 2017. I am inserting an impression of a few minutes within the more complex performance, so the reader can better understand the presence the gaze in my work.