Whale

A video installation

Yossi Ben Shoshan & Meirav Heiman

The video installation “Whale” by artists Meirav Heiman and Yossi Ben Shoshan is part of an exhibition entitled The Natural History Museum, (Petach Tikva Museum of Art, April-October 2009). The exhibition brings together contemporary art and the world of science and nature, addressing complex issues raised by the interior duality and conflicts inherent in museums and natural history museums, such as authenticity and forgery, virtual and real, colonialism, the relation of man and nature, and man’s appropriation of nature

The work “Whale” presents the animal in its natural size – its skin was taken from a photograph of a real whale and its length is about 46 feet. Unlike the manner in which stuffed animals are exhibited in natural history museums, the Whale is virtual and animated.

The work is based on an exploration of the viewer’s experience. Through the work an attempt is made to investigate the tools we use to perceive reality. When viewing this virtual stuffed animal, its “life” is made possible solely through the work of our imagination. The narrative created for the viewer – an animal the viewer could empathize with – is intended to offer a critical viewing.

Like viewing stuffed animals in natural history museums, the work exhibits a combination of a rational and an emotional experience. Whereas the naive part of us is convinced by the sight and enjoys the “beauty of nature,” our rational side retains contact with reality. It delineates that which is forgery and allows us to experience and feel the “as if,” the illusion. Similar to viewing reality TV shows, the intensive consideration of virtual experiences gradually receives the status of that which is “real” and “natural,” and with time, that which is “right.”