A selection of works created by the RadioArt course students at the Haifa university Art school during 2021-22, moderated by Meira Asher.
Fares Zoabi - Bus
Muhammad Toukhy - Dissociation in a Football Game
An atomic decomposition into the experience of watching a football game.
I space between sonar elements in the game and meditate in front of them.
Contains home and outdoor field recordings, synthesizer works and a treated readymade segment (“Nothing Compares 2U”) by Prince and Sinéad O’Connor.
Guy Horesh - One Thousand Shells by
Friday, August 1, was the deadliest and most destructive day of the 2014 Gaza war. During a humanitarian ceasefire, a clash in Rafah and a capture of an IDF soldier led the IDF to declare a “Hannibal Directive”- a massive attack on the area. Dozens of innocent Palestinians were injured and killed that Friday morning, in the event that will be remembered as “Black Friday”. ‘One Thousand Shells’ came to me as an idea, inspired by the absurd double meaning of the word “shell”.
Including archive recordings of soldiers radio communication, Palestinians interviewed and soundscapes from Rafah, all during that Friday morning. ’s “The Poem” by poet Eli Eliyahu is recited here in English and Arabic.
Mike Zak - Residential Wildlife: A Triptych
Ship captain Xalocotol of Zorigon 5 log entry No. 1337:
We have encountered a strategically insignificant blue planet whose wildlife is dominated by a semi-intelligent race of ape-like creatures.
These creature’s Holy Form seems to be the rectangle, around which they form their living conditions, in cuboid-shaped buildings aptly named “houses”. They spend most of their lives in these oddly dysfunctional structures, going out only for foraging and rarely for entertainment. Attached are 3 audio samples of their most common activities.
Mike Zak - Shephard
Laila Abd Elrazaq - Abu Layana
A work that serves as a response against the traditional Arab society’s old-fashioned standards over the importance of a household owning a male child. Which makes the females of the house left unacknowledged and considered as a dishonor upon the society, especially if they cannot bear a male child as well. In addition, I confront this matter by interrogating my father in a hidden interview session.
Laila Abd Elrazaq - narrator & interviewer, Yousef Abd Elrazaq - Laila’s father aka interviewee.
Rawuie - Rectangular Loop
Tal Gaash - The Day My Mom Met God
The day my mom gave birth to my young sister, she had a near death experience. She left her painful body on the operation table and went up. But unlike many other near-death experiences, told and recorded by people from all over the world - she did not meet eternal love and happiness. The god she met was old and tired, and deeply disappointed and desperate. She was dreaded to find out that God made up his mind to destroy the world and humanity. Including citations from the book of Ecclesiastes (Kohelet): “Vanity of vanities, said Koheleth; vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”
Fares Zoabi - Exam Day
Rawuie - imprimatura
The Italian term imprimatura which is also called under-paint or first layer was a technique invented in the Renaissance. Usually it was of a brown tone. It was used to prepare the white canvas for the real painting. It’s not very different from architecture where you prepare the land for the building.The whole concept of a whole painting hiding underneath the last two dimensional layer we see is not to be taken for granted. I believe that a painting doesn’t necessarily end in its final gesture. Imprimatura plays a very important role in every one of my paintings, it gives me a ground to express all of my intuitive and natural gestures and expressions, for me it’s not only an underpaint, it is the underworld of the painting. it might not be seen but it is surely felt. In this project I try to revive the underworld. In a way or another it’s an attempt of painting using sound as the material and not oil paint. I give it an interpretation through sound that derives from the visual and sensual process I go through in the first layer, the imprimatura.
Narmin Henawy - Shadi
My work deals with a story that went through 14 years, a story that is still etched in my heart, I have always had a corner in my heart that has love, combined with darkness and pain, and is still inside me today. My uncle Shadi, who had a car accident years ago and to this day is like a pure soul, a beating heart, moving eyes that may see around maybe not, and a disfuncional body. Because of the pain and the sadness, I wanted to create a work in which he would be the protagonist of the story. During the process I could not resist the tears because I am a loving niece and miss the good old days with him, because my uncle Shadi was a hero and still is a hero who fights hard to live. The song I sang “Me and Shadi / Shadi is gone” is by the singer Fairouz.
Arlyan Dov - Untitled
An illustration of the thoughts inside my head with a focus around the movement of thinking. Our mapping mechanism is responsible for the sense of belonging or alienation. The mental vertigo determines and stabilizes our feeling and how we feel towards ourselves and towards the reality in which we feel as existing.
I want to challenge exactly this place, and ask with it the important questions.
Featuring a collection of my monologues and field recordings of noises I notice.
Image: Forensic shells by Guy Horesh