Borrowed Time: Coastline

About | Road Scouting Demo | Installation | video clocks

Project proposal

"Coastline" is the first of four computational videos of the series "Borrowed Time." Shot along the widths and lengths of Israel. The series touches on the growing sentiment among the Jewish population that they are living there on borrowed time. Footage captured along the coastline is edited for custom software that plays back video as a striking clock, converting space into time and is exhibited as a 4-channel surround installation.

During a visit to Tel Aviv a couple of years ago, a childhood friend mentioned that he and his friends feel that they live in Israel on borrowed time. This sentiment has been echoing in social circles especially since the 2006 Lebanon War and has taken a new meaning in light of the Arab Spring and popular movement in Israel that is calling for economic and social justice. My brother, who is raising his family there, feels the Israeli state, as he came to know it, would not last past thirty years. I asked around. People talk about fifty years. I haven’t heard anyone imagining the state existing past 100 years. But then, will nation-states still be viable in one hundred years?

“Borrowed Time” is the first in a series of Videoclocks that touches this sentiment and questions the tension between the state "on the ground" and the state as a social idea. The size of Israel (approx. that of New Jersey) makes such a project feasible. Footage shot on roads along the lengths and widths of the state, plays back as clocks. The first Videoclock will follow the route from Erez Checkpoint by Gaza, in the south to Rosh-Hanikra by Lebanon in the north. The ride is less then three hours (125 miles). The ancient route is the main commercial and commuters artery in Israel and is highly congested during rush hour. On one side the Mediterranean sea, on the other urban development. Viewers experience the trip in overlapping time increments from one second to a full year. The ride contracts and expand: In the one-second playback, 125 miles translates into 24 frames. 125 miles played back over a year is slower then walking.

The road is captured with hi-definition surveillance cameras installed in a car that record in four directions (front, back, left and right). On a recent scouting trip with my brother we started by Gaza at sunrise and drove to the border with Lebanon without stopping. Despite the fact that we drove sections of the route many a times before, it was striking how quickly the state "ended". The soundtrack for the work is composed from radio play and conversation with selected friends, starting with the question "How much time is left?" All are recorded enroute. The work is displayed as a 4-channel surround installation placing the viewers as passengers. Audience can wonder in and out. The work keeps ticking and marking time, with no clear end.