Alive

2:00 min | 2018 | HD Video | Color | Sound | Loop

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In the video Alive, the artist is driving around his hometown Shefa-‘Amr, following the path he used to follow coming back home from school, holding the camera, while pointing out at “subjects and objects,” declaring them “alive”. Here, as in most of the video works by Natour, the equation is the following one: the simplicity of the work should be directly proportional to the power of its result. In other words, the artist is capable, through his work, of charging ‘simple’ actions with power, either political, emotional, or spiritual power. In fact ‘simple’ is the least appropriate word to be used in this context and yet it is interesting to see and hear (language plays always a very important role in the work) how the artist uses his work to make us realize how ‘simple’ actions – which turn out to be actually not even minimal – a nod to the history of art, but rather primal – are actually not so simple. Therefore pointing out at things and people, at what we consider alive (people) and not alive (things), and declaring them alive, regardless for what they are, brings together the empowerment we can find in certain behavior of children, which is actually, through this only apparent simplicity, mirroring a much deeper and complex system, which is that of belief – to make things “alive” – that of magic and, again, that of power. This idea of using childish, or at least apparent childish attitudes to reveal profound and powerful aspects of humankind is a leitmotiv in Natour’s video works.