No More Candy For You, 2022, Video, 13:20 min
Solo Exhibition, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Curated by Sally Haftel Naveh (Photo: Lena Gomon)
The ability to imagine seems to be an inextricable part of being human, almost as much as breathing. Imagination is essential to freedom of thought, affecting everyday actions, big and small, and the formation of self-identity. Both a person’s private world and universal development and progress are shaped, nourished, and largely affected by the imagination. Imagine a world without imagination. But occasionally, the ability to imagine, which to many seems to be self-evident, goes out of whack –completely absent, or conversely overly active. What feelings might arise when the ability to imagine fades, when the ability to translate a thought, idea, or memory into a visual image is lost? And vice versa: What would it be like to have a world in which the imagination is unbridled, turning it fantastic, saturated, and tumultuous, light years away from the actual one?
Detail from No More Candy For You (Photo: Lena Gomon)
On the axis between fiction and reality, No More Candy For You raises questions about the human imagination and the psychological mechanisms involved. The work presents two contrasting conditions: aphantasia and hyperphantasia. Aphantasia is a relatively new discovery in the study of cognition: an innate or trauma-induced state, marked by the inability to visually imagine even familiar things that have been seen recently. Hyperphantasia is a situation in which the imagination is rich and alive, and all the senses are working intensely in tandem and at once – which, in extremis, can trigger an inability to distinguish between fiction and reality, provoke psychosis, and cause suffering and pain.
The central character in No More Candy For You is based on the case of MX – the first person diagnosed with aphantasia. In the tension between the two extreme states, he embarks on a psychedelic journey and experiences a cognitive reversal: from a state of complete inability to imagine, to a wild and uninhibited hyper-imagination embodied in the appearance of inflatable air dancer dolls. Drawn into illusions, he becomes a victim of his own imagination. He is engulfed by sound, color, and movement, between a sweeping fantasy and a disturbing and violent hallucination, spiraling out of control and captivated by the sights that he discovers within himself.
This work raises questions about the power of imagination and its effects on the individual’s sense of reality. At the same time, it wonders about its place in art, which is often manifested through the darkest fantasies.
Text by Sally Haftel Naveh
Credits:
Producer: Mor Azulay | Cast: Yuval Seker, Etty Sirumhof, Moshe Mirzakandov, Yonatan Hayun | Director of Photography: Amit Chachamov | Lighting and Drone: Yishai Lachmi | Photographer Assistant: Emily-Shir Segàl Assistant Director: Shira Haimovic | Driver and Production Assistant: Yoav Malul | Hair and Makeup: Maya Feldstein Art Director: Nadav Machete | Assistant Lighting: Tal Portuguez | Soundtrack: Zoe Polanski | Sound: Roei Hermon and Armon | Sound Effects: Michal Gideon and Andres Rapaporte
Special Thanks To: Sally Haftel Naveh, Herzliya Museum Of Contemporary Art, Anat Peled, Tel Aviv Museum Of Art, Oshri Cohen, Sivan Nishri, Inbar Katz
The work was created as part of the Mifal Hapais Art Incubator Project and was made possible by the generous support of the Israel Lottery Council for Culture and the Ministry of Culture and Sports’ Foundation for Independent Creators.
