[ISEA2015] Artist Statement: Nadav Assor – LESSONS ON LEAVING YOUR BODY

Artist Statement

Digital HD Video (2014)

Lessons on Leaving Your Body features Jake Wells, DIY drone builder and possibly the world’s first Remote Control (RC) Christian Minister. While flying, crashing and repairing his homemade drone in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, Wells recounts the story of his techno-spiritual awakening, from a life in which he felt remotely controlled by other forces, to his current state. Footage of Wells observing himself from the drone’s point of view using First Person View (FPV) gear, and shots reminiscent of romantic landscape paintings depicting the wider wilderness setting in which he resides, are woven together with monologues based on Wells’ own brand of theology that is concerned with the connection between FPV flight, out of body experiences and the nature of the soul.

  • In his cross-media work, Nadav Assor performatively mediates cities, bodies and personal narratives via lo-fi reenactments of appropriated military-industrial technologies. Examining technology as an essential and transformative human condition, he has exhibited and performed internationally in venues such as Transmediale Festival in Berlin, The Lab in San Francisco, The Koffler Center in Toronto and the Petah Tikva Museum in Israel. Assor holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA, and teaches Expanded Media Art at Connecticut College, where he is also an Associate Director of the College’s Ammerman Center for Art & Technology.

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