Still Burning

Still Burning

Still burning from shahar marcus on Vimeo.

The video presents a hybrid human figure: the bottom half is naked and the upper half is doe. The doe, an organic material, a material that could transforms, turns the figure to a human golem.
The scene is presented as still nature which refers to the old tradition of the art history and the traditional paintings of ‘still nature’. The figure is motionless and the camera – the viewers’ eyes – scan the room. The silence which is reflected from the figure merges with a murmuring sound creating anticipation that something is about to happen.
Suddenly flames come from the figure and the upper half of the figure – the one covered with doe – is set on fire. The flames rise up in the air but as fast as the fire bursts in it also calms down. During the inflammation the white esthetic doe turn into useless burnet material – a metaphor to process that ripens too fast and does not bring the desired outcome.
The moment in which the figure turns in fire is the critical moment of the transformation. The anticipation for this moment starts at the very beginning of the work and seemingly disappears after the fire. The living material – the doe – turns into a dead smoking monument