TAMAR KATZ

Units

Zamal, Bezalel MFA Gallery, Tel Aviv

Units (2019)

Performance, duration: 90 min

Performers: Shirly Barbie and Elena Ellaor Cinematography: Nimrod Gershoni and Amit Chachamov Voice: Amazia Fensterheim Music: Dead People Records (Scene1+2) by Starve Pray For Thats the Way to Heaven (Remix)

Performing the Perimeter: A Study of Tactical Intimacy

In this performance, two figures operate as a synchronized unit, assuming the role of the space's silent guardians. Their choreography is dictated by the cold logic of security—a vigilant, collective gaze designed to scan, patrol, and control the perimeter. Yet, this rigid structure is constantly punctuated by moments of unexpected unification.

As the performers pivot between facing the audience with professional detachment and turning inward toward one another, the boundary between the public "sentry" and the private "couple" becomes a site of friction. They move through the space with tactical precision, at once the enforcers of order and a closed circuit of two. Even in their moments of proximity, the atmosphere remains taut; the intimacy is not a retreat into the familiar, but a deepening of their shared autonomy.

The work maps this shift from the mechanical patrol to the gravity of the dyad, questioning the point at which the labor of control dissolves into the private, tense reality of the pair. Moving from the collective outward gaze to an internal choreography, the performers occupy a space where the act of "guarding" the room becomes indistinguishable from the act of "holding" the unit together.