Venice Architecture Biennale 2012 | Israel Pavilion

Curators:   Erez Ella, Milana Gitzin-Adiram, Dan Handel

Aircraft CarrierAmerican Ideas and Israeli Architectures after 1973

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The work SCENARIO, commissioned by the Israeli pavilion at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale, revolves around aspects of destruction as an autonomous state of architecture. The multi channel video is divided into three chapters, displayed simultaneously in three separate screens.   The Israeli army often used real civilian locations in order to maximum a drill’s effect, thus creating a temporary architectural catastrophe in israel’s urban landscape. The drill depicted Pereg’s  SCENARIO simulates  the damage cause by an earthquake, thus a destroyed  building acts as a site of rehearsal , as in many of Pereg’s work- becomes an event before an event. The constant feeling of imminent destruction is common in the Israeli psychic landscape. In the likely scenarios of that destruction, earthquakes are not on the immediate list. Nevertheless, Israel prepares for them, replacing the signifier of war with that of a natural disaster. This is not uncommon in world culture and politics. It is a conceptual sublimation. However, in Israel, this process exposes curious interactions between the state, acting as the destruction contractor, the private developers who benefit from a free ride, and the imagined public interest of better preparation toward disaster. 

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