Dimensions of a Floor | duo exhibition with Adina Camhy · 2020
Adina Camhy and Dan Robert Lahiani put into display fragments from a dialogical work in progress, conducted between Austria and Israel, and manifested via performative interventions in audiovisual and photographic forms. From the macro to the micro level and between the private and the political, they explore the core of what surrounds us, both indoors and outdoors- built surfaces and matters.
This artist wall exhibit portrays a snapshot of an ongoing creative dialogue between myself and the multidisciplinary artist Adina Camhy, whom I met during a residency I attended in 2019 in Graz, Austria.
At the outset of our encounter, I watched Adina’s essayist film Mensch Maschine or Putting Parts Together (2019), a video work that combines her personal observations, poetic forms and fact-based research. Adina set out on this visual journey after she received a food processor as a birthday gift from her mother instead of the synthesizer that she had hoped to get. In an attempt to understand the connection between these seemingly unrelated devices, she created collages of films that depict the two appliances as they are put to use.
Watching Adina’s work, I couldn’t help but ponder the motivation that guided me in crafting my own video work, Printed Circuit (2018). In this short film I documented my father and myself as we dined at a restaurant in Paris, where he performed a blood test on me. This intimate but misplaced interaction was interspersed with footage of a visit I made to the local observatory.
While Adina and myself have distinctly different approaches, these projects have a lot in common. Both works are filmic observations of movement and sound that offer the viewer a peek into the tension between our personal experiences and universal ones.