CCA – Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, 2017
THE PERFECT CRIME
Curator: Chen Tamir
Noa Yafe’s show, The Perfect Crime, presented by the Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv, is an installation disguised as a photography exhibition. The black and white "images" in it were created by arranging three-dimensional objects to look like photographs. Fixed within the architecture of the gallery, Yafe’s works are optical illusions meant to confuse the distinctions between photography, sculpture, installation, and architecture – ultimately exposing how photography, as a means of representation, both documents “reality” and suggests a constructed, false version of it.
However, in a world where photography is ubiquitous, Yafe questions not just the medium itself – not simply the structure of the photographic image, which continues to morph as technology advances – but its essence, or rather its conventions. These can even be considered genres of photography, or stereotypes of images that we, the consumers of visual imagery in its many forms, are exposed to time and again. It is thus not surprising that Yafe turns our attention to a specific genre of images: black and white, film-noir stills.
The exhibition opens with an image of birds, captured in mid-flight, that reveals the birds only from a certain angle. The scene implies a moment of sudden chaos, like a slamming door or an ear-shattering gunshot, which precipitates an eerie, unknown, off-screen event that instinctively causes the birds to flee. In another work ,a large-scale, square-shaped stairwell is seen from above. No doors are visible in this seemingly bottomless silo, but the narrative of escape, or chase, or off-screen drama, is embedded in the image. We, the viewers, are forced to look down at the vertiginous abyss.
The exhibition continues with ominous yet everyday scenes: dim streets, a deserted office with a clock ticking away, and other works that culminate in The Perfect Crime, the show’s eponymous work, a darkened installation depicting a towering bank building. The dim skyscraper stands out against the night sky, while inside the crime of the century unfolds. It is the crime of economics, of inequality, of class, and of wealth. Like photography, it melds seamlessly with daily life. It is the perfect crime – invisible, yet all around us, with no specific victim, as indiscriminate as a camera.
In his 1996 book, also titled The Perfect Crime, Jean Baudrillard describes what he considers the greatest crime of all time: the murder of reality. He claims that reality has been replaced by a representation of itself. In other words, we humans collectively narrate what we think the world, or reality, is like. We project onto it a false cohesion, a simulation. However, according to Baudrillard, the human drive to rationalize and organize the world into cogent metanarratives does just the opposite – it only obscures it, since reality is inherently irrational and chaotic. Therefore, we must cling to mystery, chance, and illusion, the very things that defy the agreed-upon order of the world, to unravel the social and technological processes through which reality has vanished.
In line with Baudrillard, Yafe’s detective work reveals those perfect images we are so accustomed to asthe crime itself. The systems that organize reality, manifested through banks, offices, and lead roles, might all be just simulations or fantasies. Even the Bank of America recently said there is a significant chance we live in a simulated world. In a brief to their clients, they wrote:
Many scientists, philosophers, and business leaders believe that there is a 20-50% probability that humans are already living in a computer-simulated virtual world. In April 2016, researchers gathered at the American Museum of Natural History to debate this notion. The argument is that we are already approaching photorealistic 3D simulations that millions of people can simultaneously participate in.
Yafe’s simulated photographic images encapsulate the visual storytelling that has developed from classic film and up until today. By doing so, she challenges the very reality we narrate to ourselves through imagery.
