The Transcendence of Time in Katzenstein’s Video Work “Hope Machines”

By Emma Braslavsky

Estragon: So long as one knows.
Wladimir: One can bide one’s time.
Estragon: One knows what to expect.
Wladimir: No further need to worry.
Estragon: Simply wait.
(Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot)

Only hope allows us to progress – confidence is the actual driving force of fractals and the true impetus of the future. And it requires rituals that continually maintain a non-apocalyptic zone. An essential one is the engagement with communication and networking, because the greatest danger that looms upon humankind is atomization, isolation from the systematic vital energies of the universe. Those who do not desire to communicate are usually depressive, full of apocalyptic delusions, thus not fit for the future. Yet, one should not confuse singularity with individuality, as it does not exist as such, rather it manifests itself via an alienated self-awareness in relation to others, proving to be a projection of one’s own conscious – namely as isolation among the masses, that thereby nevertheless has to be. A sense of individuality can only exists within socialization, within a network, and not in a vacuum on a lonely planet. Optimism and faith in one’s plan are necessary in order to perpetuate one’s originality. This is not solely communicated via one’s desired appropriate means, rather is modified and defended accordingly to the conditions that arise. Communication ensures the protection of the individual – raises interest, draws attention to oneself, making a mark and thereby aspiring for recognition. Here I am, you see,…here, me, you. The flags sway, with waving handkerchiefs, move and pose. Or: You are there. Looking through a telescope, starring at the sky, casting out a line to make a catch. Or: I disappear – don’t want to see you, you shouldn’t see me. Yes, even ignoring is a way of drawing and sustaining attention to oneself. Mutual perception bonds living creatures to one another, be it one – or even multiple reactions to an inborn gesture of exhibition and estimation of another providing the basis for fundamental social cohesion.

Katzenstein positions diverse people socio-ecologically – unlike the average synchronized hybrid, not dressed up in a particular fashion, rather dressed according to their own particular “type”. Each person lives, at times not even alone, on his/her own unique artificial island, thus a sort of fabricated individually customized (appearing industrial) island on the ocean. These tiny atolls are no larger than the space for their inhabitants to walk one to two steps upon them. A cosmopolitan (a propos this is very Israeli) human landscape emerges through the diversity of characters and islands within a fluid, noisy, and flexible foundation. Here, water is portrayed as a ubiquitous, omnipotent primal and final element of our planet offering the most secure, enduring foundation. And when Katzenstein states that water has no memory, it is flexible, he is making a reference to Stanisław Lem’s Thinking Ocean on Solaris: “(…) a gigantic brain that is far progressed past millennia of the development of our own civilization; (…) an elder, wise creature, of infinite knowledge, that has long comprehended the nothingness of these actions and therefore keeps silent.” In Katzenstein’s video work the ocean is caught in time, played in a loop, repeatedly moving over and over again back to the beginning, where it originally became a non-memory. Through these recurrent fluids, neither knowledge nor consciousness accumulates over time, thus overall, no desire to comment, assert or account for anything ensues. The ocean remains intellectually invisible and unapproachable, invincible (even after numerous years of observation utilizing underwater microphones). Through this very recurrent pseudo-creature and obstinent silence he raises and maintains an aspiration for recognition, assertion and commentary.

Detection provides a means for mankind to simultaneously be assured of the old and the new. Things are as they are, and never as they were before. The sudden irruption of a new situation transposes people into tense conditions, one re-evaluates one’s plan within the new ramifications and compares it to other plans, corrects it, and adapts it. Not everyone embraces change. Yet, just because things do prove to be variable, they provide a reason to hope, rendering people alert, more capable of coping with new situations. This feeling of optimism is renewed with each evaluation of one’s surroundings, to fully realise the plan. Because so long as the plan is not brought to fruition, fulfillment and presence remain absent – the future is only anticipated as time (felt as if it is on its way in) and so to say made part of the present. And the future arises out of a purely subjective foundation and constructs of the presence, though for some it may seem like the past, as the future is just an in-vention of, no, rather an in-sight into a new singular unknown time, a form of fiction in the here and now. And the past only provides a canon of possibilities, whose gravity can barely escape time. Like a black hole, it devours our visions of the future, aligns itself solely with the past, like a firmament of faces of god-fearing souls. To distract from this past time and the ever increasing, hovering, seemingly infinitely accumulating burden, in order to continue to allow optimism and will to arise in the future, people develop effective means of communication, media, which are capable of moving the masses. Now they generate hope through promise and non-fulfillment – they derive their strength based on hypotheses, not out of an outmoded assuredness in the future. They test the future as if in a laboratory examination, as every plan unfurls the myriad colours of its own uniqueness. It still remains true: the fulfillment of hopes kills optimism, a sense of the future, and in the worst case causes the reversal of time, and thereby the collapse of the universe. So, Estragon, it should actually be: So long as one would know, one would know what to expect. Actually it is the conjunctive mood that rules the future and only seemingly the future mood, as our German teachers always wanted us to believe. Yet, we remain on the lookout, the ocean does not respond to us. That is why we will never give up!

(Translation by Cass Chaya Hirsh)