In the beginning, there was rhythm.
A rhythm of a germinating seed, cells continuously dividing, heartbeats. It preceded the word, the identity, and the cause. And this recurring cycle, natural and ancient, is the living beat of the body, coming before the signifier, prior to the word and speech. It is a motion of embodiment in the nameless space: the transparent guardian of existence.
This rhythm is the key to knowing the body as it is. It meters the pace of every sentence even before the formulation and placement of words. It is the beat that precedes articulation, the internal motion that anticipates actions and gestures.
This pre-verbal rhythm thrums in the video works by Yasmin Davis: primal, familiar, eluding definition. Her works resonate with unceasing, unclassified motion, making the need for concrete contexts and plots redundant. Davis’ cinematic language is frugal and lacks any excess. She forgoes stylistic mannerisms, dialogue, or a saturated soundtrack. She speaks the language of pure cinema, of using the most fundamental tool in the cinematic toolbox.
The exhibition “Blink of an Eye” brings together four of her works in two separate chapters. Three works were created in 2014-18 and they comprise the first chapter. The fourth work, a video titled “Rustle” (2023) presents the second chapter. Both chapters are constructed in a periodic course of small gestures, encounters and farewells, longing and refusal, exposure and obscurity, threat and protection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJeGFWrwcXA
1.
Three of the video works that comprise the first chapter of the exhibition are centered on a single act: a small and infinitely repeated motion. A form of logic that is applied within a predetermined arena.
What can the gesture be besides the unexpressed remnant of the expressive act? It exposes the act in the clearest fashion and transcends the linguistic representation to capture the immediate and indescribable: a footnote within the timeline that deviates from form. This footnote does not stem from the verbal sequence, but rather is its originator. The gaze is forced to follow the footnote and disrupts the reading. It demands delay, and implies some trust in the reader as they are given unclassified information, a key to another possible world.
Three video works, three gestures, three scenes that present the same two figures. One of the figures is the artist herself, directly facing the camera and thus the viewer, the receiver of the act. She addresses the viewer unambiguously. She is here for that viewer who has clearly been assigned a role: to play the other. And once a viewer takes his or her place, the dialogue begins.
This dialogue is conducted and mediated by the camera lens, an invisible and intangible entity but one not free of bias. The camera becomes the gaze, establishing the reciprocal relations between the viewer and the figure they face. This direct interaction recognizes the essential presence of the receiver, undermines the traditional separation between the fictional world screened before them, and demands their involvement. This ontological act is twofold: the direct address indicates that the screened figure is aware of being part of a fictional construct while still establishing the tangible and concrete moment of the viewer. Viewer and artist are thus both stationed on the border between what is and what is possible. And yet, this “fourth wall” stands. Its transparency is the very thing that drives it, and its fascinating proximity disrupts the visual structure of the cinematic form, leading beyond language and representation. With Davis, what you see and how you see it are of equal importance: attention is directed to representation itself, and is palpable even in its obscurity.
In the video “Following You Following Me no. 2”, the artist’s figure exists in a black abstract space. She strides towards the camera lens and chases it as it moves away. Her pace changes, accelerating and slowing down. At times, she looks back as if someone is chasing her. But she is the one hunting the ever-elusive camera as it refuses to submit and be caught. In fact, she is walking in place on a conveyer belt which is outside the frame. The camera before her is fixed to a dolly and limited to movement backward and forward, creating the illusion that the figure is roaming a vast space.
Naturally, the lens is simply the visual mechanism of the receiver, of a viewer standing to face a woman repeatedly trying to arrive, her gaze boring ahead. In those moments in which she almost reaches her target, the closeup of her face fills the frame. Her mouth is tight-lipped, her eyes huge, dark, and opened wide like a gateway into a private and unspoken dimension. The gaze lingers on the thin line between threatening and intimate closeness. Then the camera pulls away slowly, and the closed mouth unclenches to reveal front teeth. The air trapped in her lungs is suddenly expelled, seeming to push away the camera.
The figure then inhales and again nears the camera. Her proximity is not a measure of her speed. In fact, as the chase continues it becomes clear this distance is guided by some other reasoning, some other mechanism: her ability to hold her breath, forcibly controlling an involuntary action. The moment she fills her lungs with air, her nearness becomes so extreme it steams up the lens. Her face blurs and distorts into a smudge. The closer she gets, the more she disappears. The closer she is, the more two-dimensional she becomes. There is nothing tangible to hold.
This version of the video was completed in one take and then duplicated. The first part presents one direction of the chase of the figure and camera. The second part is in reverse, exchanging the roles each plays. Hunter becomes hunted, the intruder runs in retreat, inhalation becomes exhalation. This endless motion never reaches the point of culmination, a yearning that remains unrequited, a promise that can never be kept. The reverse order seems mechanical, jerking the figure like a puppet before the humanized mechanical eye. Davis, well aware that the mechanical fantasy established by the camera is already deeply ingrained in everything we see, say, and dream, manipulates this fact to lead us to that which defies representation, to the absent presence we incessantly pine for, to the unbreachable threshold, to the encounter that never transpires.
[for it to exist, she must stop breathing]
In the video work “OM” she again stands before us through the camera lens. A transparent glass screen is held between her hands. This time, the camera is still. Ostensibly, there is no possibility of deception. The figure’s hands move away from the clear screen, then come closer, as if trapped in the others gravitational pull. As the figure stares at her hands while they advance and retreat from the glass, a third hand materializes between them; an illusion created from the reflection on the glass. It seems the filmed figure is playing a role. She is the illusionist in a game of “Find the Queen”. But instead of one queen, there are three. Which is the real one and which are fakes? Let’s be honest. None is genuine. All are images caught and flattened into two-dimensional form by the lens, just like the Lumière brothers’ arriving trains (the film, L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat, drove out the first audience as they fled in panic) or the Georges Méliès’ “trick films”. The cinematic illusion is the focus of Davis’ work. Vision is the sense most susceptible to deception, and the cinematic medium utilizes this weakness to the hilt.
Even though over a century has passed since the early cinema of Méliès’ to the rich array of digital possibilities available to Davis, she (an artist for whom cinematic language is not merely a means to an end but the focus of interest) opts for the simple illusion of reflection. Technological advances may have taken giant strides, but the human eye abides. Still letting us fall for a simple sensory fallibility.
The tricks employed by both Méliès’ and Davis are not truly reliant on the limitations of human sight. They depend on trust. Despite every technological innovation, we still rely on appearance. These visual illusions are in fact a “confidence trick” that in this case is founded on our belief in ourselves and our senses. The term was coined in the 19th century to describe how to gain the confidence of a “mark”. The people who performed these tricks were called “confidence artists” (abbreviated to “con artists”).
The parallel created by Davis between art and trickery is deliberate. Both begin from the establishment of an alternative world, one that borders on the real world, and on our tendency to pass the seam that separates them unknowingly. Both are rooted in the same standard lie, in our desire to give in to the norms of the fourth wall. We want to believe it propels the entire action, that it enables it.
But notice this too is merely appearance. We, all so educated and informed, well aware the third hand is only a reflection, are left in childlike wonder at the sight of her figure removing her hands from the glass and the third hand that remains in semi-transparency, floating alone. The force of our belief has allowed us to unwittingly break the bounds of the impossible.
The video work “Knife Dance” (2014) that concludes the first chapter in the exhibition presents Davis in a dark dress. The space she inhabits is no longer black and abstract. She stands on the threshold of an inner doorway between two rooms with white walls and doors. She is in an apartment and behind her is a delineated rectangle of sunlight. One hand rests on the door frame and the other clutches something close to her body. What is she holding? Initially, we cannot see. The focus of the lens (the eye at our disposal) leaves the item blurred. However, in contrast to the static figure, the camera is again dynamic. It approaches the figure with a high and discordant sound that becomes louder as it approaches. The hand comes into focus: she is holding a knife. It seems the blade is directed at the center of her chest. But this is also an illusion. The closeup reveals the hand holding the handle, but remains oblivious to the blade, which is actually turned towards the lens, meaning to us. As the camera again draws back, the metal razor becomes clear. It is sharp and thin. Vibrating slightly. The camera moves back and forth like a pendulum towards the knife blade held ready to stab it (us) again and again.
A small gap, just a few centimeters of camera motion, changes the scene. The assault of the camera is replaced by an act of self-destruction. The predator is replaced by the prey. How minuscule is the distance between close and too close.
2.
The curtain is the first to appear. It is drawn across the window, creating a barrier between inside and out. Between home and the world. The hems of its wide folds dip into the round shadows created by the fabric’s motion and extend upward, suddenly bright and yellow, lit from the outside. Its wings enclose the window from right and left, almost meeting midway. A sliver of white and shining light remains at the center, a slice of the outside world. The sunlight that filters through the fabric is softened, coloring it into a private, enclosed golden sky of the world beyond.
Then the artist’s hand appears. At first, just her fingers. Her index finger slowly advances upward. Maybe trying to trace the shining gap. Several seconds pass before we understand: the finger is not moving in the air. A hint of reflection, a faintly heard high pitched tone indicates it moves along a transparent and hard surface, one previously unnoticed.
The curtain. One. The window behind it. Two. The clear barrier before it. Three. Three layers. Three barriers. Light penetrates them all, boring to the core.
The first shot of the video work “Rustle” (2023) encodes a lot of information through simple means. The window, curtain, and clear surface are joined by the camera. Its lens directs the gaze, zooms in and out as needed, framing time and place, ensnaring them so we can watch them in a different time and place. The camera establishes space. It is no accident that the word “camera” comes from the Latin “kamera” (chamber). And there is a chamber, why shouldn’t it have a window? An opening through which light permeates (reminding us of camera obscura). This is the line upon which one can look inward and outward; a threshold between the personal and social, a political space that, like every border, can be breached.
This division between inside and out and the rhythm of motion created between them is something we encountered in the first chapter, but a change has occurred. First came the barrier between us and the filmed figure, clarifying our role as we face her like a reflection. Now we have been demoted to the ranks of passive observer. The moving finger is a reminder: the barrier may be transparent, but it is still impenetrable.
As she plays her role anew in this work, Davis is not in an abstract or obviously symbolic space, but instead in her own apartment. She no longer faces the camera as a huntress or illusionist but stands simply against the background of curtains. Her body is upright in its sentinel vigilance, her ears seemingly cocked to the outside world, but her gaze turned to the room.
The cyclical pace of proximity and distance is also present in this work, as is the focus on borders and mergers. This time they transform into a dialogue between the familiar figure and a new one, her daughter, and the exchange they conduct with the world outside the home they inhabit.
The work was filmed throughout the first three years of her daughter’s life, and although she only appears in fleeting moments, the passage of time is evident in her changing voice as it accompanies the entire work along with that of her mother.
Along with the advancing vector of time, a time of growth, maturation, and maturity, the cyclicality of time seen in previous works is also palpable in this video. It is evident in the recurring camera angles and their objects: the window, the figure looking inward and listening outward, the room that holds the double bed shared by mother and daughter which faces other windows and their drawn curtains, the mother’s hands on the clear screen. All these reappear at different times, throughout months and years. The light of the sun as it rises, the lengthening shadows as it sinks into the yellow hue of the curtain, the silhouette of the vine as it grows over the seasons until it covers the entire window like a swaying stain, as if attempting to envelop the apartment in a protective shield. Time passes in the sound of cooing doves from the window, replaced by buses driving by, the caw of ravens or the roll of thunder.
Davis assembles the video as would a poet writing in verse, subjecting herself to the aesthetics of meter and mnemonics. The repeating rhythm lays the foundations for words: scaffolding erected in space to provide the framework for the evolution of language.
And language comes slowly. Accumulating in baby gurgles and the gentle sound of suckling. At first, the body expresses itself without words, in a cyclical melody. The tiny body of the daughter is tuned to the mother’s movements, gestures, voice, and touch. She is attuned to her mother’s body, which first experienced otherness as a primary, internal, ever intensifying flicker, followed by an inevitable separation: a parting from the body, from unconditional love, from a state of non-separateness which makes way for the other.
The home is a nourishing and defensive cocoon. It encompasses this initial space of bonding, wrapping it in transparent and opaque layers as if aware that the mother’s time must inevitably end. The home is the place in which this maternal order is preserved, and also where a distance is carved out between one body and the next. Language will breach this space. Language will impose an abstract and rigid new order, employing a mechanism of contrasts. One cannot indefinitely ignore the world’s rules which simultaneously enact and besiege this intimate bond.
The home is where the mother introduces her daughter to sequences of sounds, and the child imitates these voices. The room provides the space in which new syllables come into being. Sounds as yet unformed into words resonate between the walls. As the words slowly form into sentences, the infant surrounded by pillows in the beginning of the work transforms into a toddler running across the room. Her hair grows longer, her limbs lengthen, her vocabulary expands in leaps and bounds. The sound “O” becomes “Or” (Hebrew: light).
[“what is this?” asks the mother | “sun” answers the toddler | “and what is this on the curtain? All these shadows?” poses the mother, asking the child to describe the world beyond the curtain | “noise”]
Days are followed by nights, autumn followed by winter, but the mother remains at her post on the boundary between inside and out, alert and on guard. Her hands return to the glass as if to ensure it still stands as a protective barrier against the world [“what is this?” asks the mother | “hand” answer the daughter]. At one point, the roar of a plane seems to shake the barrier. The mother’s hand stays planted in place to absorb the noise, while her other hand is placed on the other side of the barrier. Both are anchored on the rigid transparency between them until the plane passes and the noise fades away. The mother stands on both sides within and outside the protective space. As she perches by the window, she looks into the room, at her motherhood.
The rhythm of the video adheres to a strict order, moderate in its tempo. It is disrupted only when the mother leaves her station and abandons the curtain. One can glimpse her moving silhouette on the background of the curtain or reflected in the glass of a photograph hung on the opposite wall. A piece of paper rests on that glass: a red monochrome painting, an example of the daughter’s wordless expression, a charming display of early childhood art. This is not a random scrawl, but a work of creation.
Several moments later, the perspective shifts. The familiar yellow curtain reappears, but not from a static position and not from previous angles. Now the camera is dynamic and is low, that of a child spinning quickly in the room in the way of children to twirl until feeling dizzy, dropping to the floor as it runs away from your feet. The sound of a plane taking off floods the room, its volume intensifying the revolving gaze. The mother’s hands again hold the clear divide that wraps them both, trying to ease the shock of a world trampling inward. Now, the fingers of one hand are crossed with the fingers of the other. The hands are clutched together, an indication that the transparent barrier has dissipated [“I heard a dog”, the little girl states in a completely constructed sentence, one fed from outside voices. “It is a big dog”].
Last image. The same room, the same bed beside the shuttered windows. The curtain is drawn aside to catch the passing breeze. The outside world and its sounds flow into the room. Warm sunlight enters through the window to burnish the golden curls of the sleeping girl, her head on the pillow, as soft and gentle as her name. She now belongs to the world of words, an unknowing subject of the symbolic order. And at the core of the new order in which she will grow and become a woman, the essential rhythm of that initial bond between mothers and daughters continues to throb. A rhythm of a germinating seed, of cells continuously dividing, of heartbeats will enfold and accompany every sentence she utters even before there are words to fill them, as if groping toward a melody that the ears cannot hear.