miscellaneous

Digital Video, 13′36
I have completed a new performance/video questioning formation of national identity and national symbols.

- Special thanks to Ozkal family and Rachel Karasick.

Societies have tremendous respect for their national symbols. At times of national events, they become displays of patriotism, provoking thousands to kill and or die in the name of honoring them.

In this performance I’m unraveling a red rag similar to an actual flag hung on the wall.

The purpose of my performance is not to criticize any nationalist feeling, but rather stimulate audience with questions:

What drives the impulse to display a flag? Why should anyone feel the need to exalt their own country over another?

“According to Kant, we never know things as they truly are - as things in themselves - but only in terms of how they appear to us, as phenomena. 1″ We learn to respect our nations’ flag, the aura of the flag much earlier then we understand about the social and cultural background that it is embedded into.

In fact, one can blindly worship a piece of fabric long before internalizing any of the values it stands for.

Although my act might be perceived somehow offensive — damaging a flag is still strictly forbidden in many countries–, my intension is not to damage but perhaps to disarm the symbol, take it back to its primal state; to a state of basic materiality. And before it becomes a(nother) phenomena, simply ask again:

Would the big red yarn I’m holding in my hands still symbolize the same cultural values?

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1. Dani Cavallaro (2001). Critical and cultural theory: thematic variations. The Athlone Press. New Jersey.

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