TARGET
AUDIANCE
May 2018
Bezalel MFA Thesis Show,
"Targeted Audience" is a video and sculptural installation that consists of several elements. At first, the viewer is confronted with hundreds of cell phone covers printed with various images ranging from banal generic ones from image banks to startling and poignant. Using a cell phone store aesthetic, the cell phone covers are lined up on a wall behind which is a moving shooting target. Nearby, a short video shows a man pointing a gun both at himself and the viewer. Completing the installation is a painting that swings over to reveal a vault. The various elements that comprise this installation all rest on gestures that transform seemingly banal objects or moments into ones loaded with surprising and violent potential. Rather than be simply objects to behold, they all “look back” at the viewer. Phones turn into targets whose silhouettes suggest they are shooting us; a benign work of art is pregnant with mysterious hidden value; and a video seems like a mirror disorienting our own subjectivity.
