Ofri Cnaani I ⌘D (Command+ Duplicate) from Ofri Cnaani on Vimeo.
Documentation of performances in Kiasma Museum, Helsinki, and Herzlyia Museum, Israel.
documentation: ⌘D (Command+ Duplicate), (OFF)ICIELLE @ Fiac, Paris. October 2014 from Ofri Cnaani on Vimeo.
documentation of October 22-26, 2014
⌘D (Command+ Duplicate)
6 days of non stop participatory performance
presented by GALLERIA MARIE-LAURE FLEISCH , Rome at
(OFF)ICIELLE @ Fiac, Paris.
⌘D (Command+ Duplicate) is a participatory performance to be held by the artist during the fair. This installation is centred on the on-going production of personalized A4 one-of-a-kind Xerox pieces, made from visitors’ belonging and selected found ephemera, by Cnaani’s own ad-hoc photocopying and projection station.
The visitors are invited to pick an item from their personal belongings and two others from Cnaani’s station (provided by Cnaani) to be included in a custom image created especially by the artist for them. A copier then will record the final image projected on the wall, as well as producing a paradoxical, unique copy on paper that will be signed and given to each participant.
Employing old devices, Cnaani’s piece, brings back the values of something hand-made and at a slow pace. Her Do-It-Yourself projecting and copying apparatus not only gives an immediate image-map system but also brings back the playfulness and simplicity involved in composing an image. The photocopier, associated with bureaucracy, is being used as a tool for new dialogs, while efficiency is being replaced by creativity.
Defined as a sort of portrait of Dadaist inspiration, these photocopies of objects can be considered modern-day interpretations of May Ray’s Rayographs. First defined in the 1938 Dictionary of Surrealism, these were considered “Photographs obtained by the simple interposition of objects between photosensitive paper and a light source”, and furthermore, “taken in a moment of visual detachment full of emotion, these images represent the oxidation of desires fixed by light and chemistry to produce living organisms.”
The title of the piece, ⌘D (Command+ Duplicate), represents the keyboard shortcut of a graphics software representing the ‘duplication’ function. In this installation, the idea is clearly to make copies, while each of the copies produced and distributed is derived from no particular original source. Thus, the performance demonstrates the nullification of distance between the mechanical reproduction of a work of art for mass consumption and the unrepeatable uniqueness of the same; an elaboration on the theory proposed by Benjamin in the 1930s.
Situated in an art fair booth, the installation makes reference to two economies, that of exchange and the other of donation as the viewers take a signed piece home, but also offers the visitors the role of being active agents by way of personalization of the art work. The artist, who will produce numerous original images every day, is questioning the model of limited supply in the art world, while fulfilling the ultimate fantasy of the visitor of owning an original piece of art.
