E11 and another struggling through a window; a detached hand; the “sun,” which in Picasso’s painting illuminates the horror; and incongruously, a tiny flower – a speck of innocence planted by Picasso in this scene of death. By detaching these figures from the composition, Platnic grants each a space of individuality in which to subtly convey their helplessness and despair. The figures and objects appearing in the videos are animated manually. Thus, the strings attached to the bird’s wings and the baby’s limbs are visible, along with the hands that work them. As they encounter the videos, viewers may be shocked by the appearance of human eyes glimpsed through holes of apparently lifeless silicon masks. In turn, the objects presented in the gallery space are animated by servo motors. The baby turns its head, its eyes following the visitors, and the horse moves its limbs helplessly in midair. The fragmentation process does not stop at wresting figures from Picasso’s composition, but goes as far as assembling a single figure from the body parts of three different performers. Thus, the screaming woman’s limbs, painted a sickly yellow, belong to two different people, while the masked head is that of a third performer. The Figure 4. Michel Platnic, Tammuz, 2024. Still from video.
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