The destruction of the house of Abu al-Aish

July 2009

The title, The destruction of the house of Abu al-Aish, alludes to the bombing of Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish's house, killing three of his daughters and other relatives during the Dec 2009 bombardment of the Gaza Strip by Israel. Abu al-Aish is an Israeli trained doctor and peace activist who was involved in promoting joint Israeli-Palestinian projects, and an academic who studied the affects of war on Gazan and Israeli children. The installation hangs an imposing monitor above the heads of viewers, forcing them to awkwardly look up and acknowledge the video on display and the possibility of being struck by the monitor if it happened to come loose. The monitor displays an animation generated from a software program showing a perpetual rainfall of debris falling from what might be the roof of a bombed building. The images are rendered such that they lose any specificity, they might be for any war, any tragedy, perpetually replaying the same horrors, as it is replayed over and over again in Palestine. However, in abstracting and aestheticizing this scene of violence, the piece alludes to the effects of mass media's disposability of such imagery, especially when viewed from the safety of our living rooms, neutering the real trauma of the events that inspired it.

Material: Computer, Monitor, Steel Wire, Custom Computer Program

Dimensions: 5' x 4' x 1'