Displacement, shift, parallax, removal, and mobility are all different forms of dislocation anrepositioning, whether by choice or duress. Human and natural systems are constantly shifting due to survival and struggle processes; Biological, physical, or mental processes; And developmental processes of transformation, reproduction, and liberation; Subjects and objects are formed in processes of ongoing, voluntary and involuntary, movement, where sequences are created and interrupted, and consequently images, artistic actions, and meanings are continuously repositioned. If we look at basic linguistic mechanisms of understanding and producing meaning, the act of displacement sets the original meaning in an ongoing process of concealing and revealing, within a relation of substitution and “placeholding.” In this sense, the act of displacement allows us to discover new knowledge about the world and establish a platform for critical inquiry. In the current geopolitical reality, the act of displacement is associated with violence and force, introducing urgent issues of migration, uprooting, expropriation, and gentrification.
There are also spaces were subjected to deterritorialization, becoming anti-places or nonplaces that have no “memory” or “history.” In a psychoanalytical context, the term displacement canbe traced back to Freud’s theories of subconscious defense mechanisms and technique of dream interpretation and therapy. Building on Freud, Lacan considered the act of displacement to be a seminal principle of the unconscious world, an expression of the insatiable desire for the lack. The worlds of dreams, fantasy, and science fiction also originate in this desire.
In the world of science, parallax – the human ability to see something at a distance from different perspectives and the illusion that distant things move slower than those closer to us –
is how our minds gain depth perception. Parallax serves as an astronomical tool for observing and measuring distances in space and is utilized for military functions, as well as in contemporary photography technologies and digital video games.
At its essence, dislocation is the transition from the previous stage, which was relevant to the reality in which it existed, to the current reality. Migration, nomadism, and mobility are associated with aspects of the animal world, genetics, and ecology. At the same time, they are basic concepts that pertain to ways of life and cultural, information, language, technology, capital, and economic exchange on a global level (one example is the use of “roaming” in reference to data migration from one communication network to another). These concepts capture basic outlooks and tensions in the life of the individual and society in Israel and around the world: notions of transience and challenging physical and conceptual boundaries as new
possibilities for social relationships; False or real freedom and the eternal outsider’s perspective of the nomad, the mobile man versus the orderly, rational, and controlled stationary life;
Concepts of migration, refugeehood, belonging and rootlessness, global tourism, and fantasies of passion, as well as journeys of exploration – both of the self and of the other.
This year at Musrara Mix #19 we will look at displacement in terms of dislocation, shift, mobility and migration through a plethora of discourse and research disciplines. Conversion and
nomadism, expropriation and deterritorialization, disassembly and reconstruction – concepts and thought patterns that play a key role in contemporary artistic discourse, the media,
science, philosophy, and psychoanalysis. The artists will bring their creative processes into the exhibition venues, spilling into the streets, courtyards and trails throughout Musrara neighborhood, with the aim of creating new possibilities for addressing and discussing the meanings of these notions and the critical and poetic understanding of their role in our lives.