The politics of arrival: Israeli borderscapes and the boundaries of artistic space in Emi Sfard’s Invasive Species

Abstract

This article explores ecologically-inflected conceptions of home and belonging through a detailed study of Invasive Species (2017), an immersive media installation by emerging artist Emi Sfard. The installation comprises two interactive video works created with the help of 3D computer programs that can be updated in real time. Both works relate in different ways to Israeli landscape imaginaries, and examine the hidden relations between human and non-human “border crossers” that contribute to the way in which the national contours of the state of Israel are sustained, on material, aesthetic and conceptual levels. As I will argue, the installation’s critical edge resides in part in its refusal to remain within the picture plane, implicating spectators in the depicted images through gaming technologies, and so interspersing questions of national boundaries with those of the borders of the gallery space

Keywords

• borders
• landscapes
• zionism
• eco-imaginaries
• immersion
• israeli art