Ronit Citri

Hearing Flames, video compilation, 2015–16, One-channel video projection, 12:43 min

A film composed of fragments, each representing an operative feature of the photographing and recording device: Recording without a Wind Shade, 2015; Decreased Frame Rate to One Frame per Second, 2015; Loop, 2015; Increased Aperture (f-stop), 2015; Lens Flare, 2016; Automatic Focus, 2016; Burnt Highlights as Marked by Camera Raw Digital Darkroom Software, 2016; Shabbat Siren, 2016; Epilogue, 2016.

The work tries to realize in the film,  a space in which, in the words of Walter Benjamin, ״a different nature speaks to the camera than speaks to the eye”. Juxtaposing the fragmentary images on a single photographic sequence introduces burning as a common element underlying each of the photographed excerpts: the sound of wind in the camera recording resembles the sound of flames; increased aperture yields a burnt image; the refractions of light resemble sparks; the digital darkroom software marks the burnt areas; and so on. 

The video narrative oscillates between two fire events in the Jerusalem Forest: the murder of 16-year old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, who was burned to death by a Jerusalem optician in July 2014; and a fire that threatened to damage the Holocaust Museum at Yad Vashem in July 2011. The camera moves from the place where the youth's body was found, along the road passing through the forest, to the Givat Shaul neighborhood, where the road next to which the body was found begins and ends. 

The camera's field of vision allows for the emergence of new content in the work; with the burning of the image, the Israeli coniferous forest is replaced by a snow-covered pine forest, while Givat Shaul in the background, where the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin once stood, disappears. 

The work concludes at the Yad Vashem observation deck overlooking the forest (Epilogue), from which the spot where the youth was murdered can be seen. Looking through Yad Vashem's glass railing, overlooking the forest, the camera's lens captures the reflections of visitors as ghost figures against the backdrop of the Israeli landscape, as the cypress treetops flicker in the wind like flames knocking on the structure's walls.