Simone The Hermetic, 2015

Yael Bartana’s 'Simone the Hermetic' is a site based audio-visual installation. The work takes place in the year 3615, in which the world is marking the 1,600th anniversary of the rise of the legendary figure of Simone – a young man who miraculously got pregnant and thereby changed humanity forever. The viewer is invited to stand facing what used to be the Wailing Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, to don headphones and to take part in an audio simulation that recreates Jerusalem exactly as it was during the imaginary lifetime of Simone, in the year 2015. 

 

Bartana's sound installation leads the viewers through the streets and locations in which Simone's journey took place and eventually reached its culminating point: the disaster of the molecular disintegration of the city. The remote approach of the political and social existence of the city from an imagined future makes it possible to contemplate on some of the most central power struggles and hierarchical structures of our time.