video: Asaf Alboher
photography: Shay Ben Efrain
Installation accompanied video documentation of the action
The inspiration for the work was a true story I read, in which a reserve soldier who was an electronics enthusiast, improvising an add-on to the Hawk missile system and after several attempts was the first in the world to succeed in dropping the MiG 25 — a formidable spy plane, in the brazen act of a creative Israeli improvisation.
The work is made of terracotta, a ceramic material that has existed since the dawn of mankind and has been used to create tools from the ancient times to the present day. The material ironically mentions the complex ceramic materials used by the aeronautical industry to open the boundaries of the technology to reach space and fly at speeds.
In the performance, the plane flies in front of a wall with two home rockets on it that look like the jet engine. The plane flies confidently into the wall in front of it and crashes. Fragment of the aircraft, some of which get stuck in the wall and most of them scatter in space, are part of the final installation. Slow motion video documents the violent event that created the installation.
The work ironically portrays human history’s attempt to shape the world through the tools around us and to stretch the boundaries of material and technology beyond our human material being