Gilad Ratman
The Workshop
Originally a multi-channel video installation with sculptures and sound, this iteration of The Workshop by Gilad Ratman is a three-channel distillation of the expansive project that follows a group’s underground pilgrimage from Mt. Carmel in Israel to Venice, emerging underneath the Israeli pavilion in the Venetian Giardini. Upon their arrival, the motley group of 30 non-actor participants then sculpt self-portrait busts of themselves, with microphones embedded and protruding from the sculptures. The intensely physical pilgrimage culminates in a collective act of performative disinhibition. The extralinguistic utterances of each individual, directed at and into their own clay likeness, evokes beyond-the-self-expression, and suffuses the work with an uncanny atmosphere. Each clay-engulfed microphone connects, through long cords and tangled lines, to a mixer and DJ who mixes and processes the incoming flow of ululations, transforming them into disjointed, yet melodic arrangements. The work considers transit, networks, site-specificity, as well as the notion of a surface, and what might lie beyond it.