Catalogue > Un extrait vidéo au hasard

Last Person Shooter examine a range of both human and mechanical modes of vision. By way of a series of historical scenes reconstructed as 3D architectural models, the historical context of machine vision and its underlying concepts are conjured. These models are explored by an invisible protagonist, embodying the familiar, yet antiquated aesthetic of a first-person shooter. The work opens with a reconstruction of the assassination of Ahmed Jabri, a Palestinian militant who was targeted by an Israeli drone in November 2012. The assassination was documented simultaneously both by Palestinian passersby and by the IDF’s drone, creating two parallel, conflicting narratives: these were then uploaded to Youtube and tweeted, in what was in effect a war of images. The video leads into a dreamlike digital desert, evoking the Cuban Missile Crisis and its significance for the development of satellite reconnaissance during the 1960s. The protagonist embodies a birds-eye view, exploring the blind spots and prejudices of such varying perspectives. Finally, the film concludes with a reenactment of a video shot by an American soldier in Afghanistan in a first-person perspective. The footage offers an immersive, bleak representation of 21st century warfare and its mediation.

Adam Kaplan is an artist, ­a graduate of the Fine Arts department in Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Born in Jerusalem, he currently lives between Montreal and Berlin where he is studied under Hito Steyerl as a guest student in the Universität der Künste. Boaz Levin is an artist and writer based in Berlin. He studied at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem and under Hito Steyerl at the Universität der Künste in Berlin.