The Map and the Territory

In October 2012, Felix Baumgartner jumped from a balloon hovering at the edge of the atmosphere, setting a world record for freefall. His descent—an act that underscores the tension between personal time and historical time—serves as the backdrop for this work. Baumgartner’s blurred figure is accompanied by subtitles that echo the prohibitions and messages displayed on signs at three sites in Jerusalem: the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, the Western Wall, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. These locations, each in its own way, mark the physical and religious boundaries of the city and the affiliations of its communities. If Baumgartner defied the limits of speed and time, then artists David Brognon and Stéphanie Rollin confront human time with the Middle Eastern and transcendent temporality of Jerusalem. 

*Image: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem: Gift of Nathalie and Jean-Daniel Cohen, Paris

Keren Russo’s work captures the striking landscapes of the Dead Sea through a 16mm lens, accompanied by a soundtrack that unfolds a dystopian narrative in which water is a scarce and precious resource. Freedom of movement is determined by proximity to water and the willingness to pay both physical and mental prices to obtain it. Told from a deeply personal perspective, the narrator’s account offers insight into his condition and social standing, the society he inhabits, the disaster that befell it, and his reluctant survival amid the ruins. 

Against the backdrop of Israel’s complex geopolitical landscape, Shabtai Pinchevski draws on concepts rooted in algorithmic navigation systems and questions their ethical dimension. The work combines video, mapping and tracking technologies, and AI-generated images to craft speculative history and show the manipulative reality created by autonomous vehicles. Thus he invites viewers to critically examine infrastructures, control mechanisms, and the Israeli context within which they operate.