Echo

2008, 16mm archival film converted to Digital Video. Original Stereo Soundtrack. 8 min (loop).

Echo begins with large, abstract squares of color. As the work progresses, those squares become smaller and finer, becoming recognizable as digital pixels. The images constructed by those pixels gradually come into focus, reaching the apex of clarity approximately halfway through the work, and then slowly dissipate into pixels of growing size again. As the progression brings the images into focus, the viewer can see scenes of infamous protests that took place north of Haifa in 1985 upon the closing of ATA, a cooperative textile factory. The factory closing and loss of jobs for 3000 workers occurred because of cheaper outsourcing of work to the Far East, sparking one of the most severe labor protests in the country’s history.

The protest footage was shot on 16mm film by Channel 1, the state-controlled news network that was the sole source for news at the time. The following year, the station transferred from using film to video, a change mirrored by the work’s migration from digital to analogue forms (and back again). The government’s shift in medium arguably echoes its move in textile production: both can be interpreted as the loss of quality for the sake of savings. Evron’s manipulation of the video is also akin to the weaving of fabric; the loose pixels are like threads that only form a cohesive whole when brought into close contact with each other.  (LR)

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