The Man in the Glass Box (1961–2011)

A TRIAL ABOUT THE BANALITY OF EVIL

Court room with Eichmann in the glass booth, 1961

CONCEPT

50 years after the Eichmann trial in Israel took place, the full compendium of more than 400 hours of film footage documenting the trial were released earlier this year on Youtube. In 1961, former SS officer and highest figure in the Nazi hierarchy responsible for facilitating the extermination of European Jewry, was charged and tried with committing crimes against the Jewish people and humanity. The case of multiple controversies was the first telecast of actual courtroom proceedings and was from the beginning conceptualized as a symbolic performance with a special stage design which placed the accused in a bullet-proof glass booth, a film director that made deliberate cinematographic decisions and an international audience that witnessed the trial from the living room. Originally shown as daily newsreels on international television, the trial was performed as a morality play, not surprisingly ending with the death sentence of the accused, which until today remains the only civil execution ever carried out in Israel.

In the installation "The Man in the Glass Box (1961–2011)", the aesthetic and narrative strategies of the trial are made transparent. The proceedings are performed as an audio and video drama in three acts: the appeal, the testimony, and the verdict. From the ceiling 6 headphones are hanging, all sliced in half, of which each presents a disembodied voice of one persona in the proceedings: the accused, the judge, the prosecutor, the defender, a witness, and a political journalist. All voices contribute to the trial from their own perspective, however, only disclose a fraction of the story.

The audio is expanded by a three channel video projection, which likewise disassembles the original film footage. As a result of the required simultaneous translations of the original proceedings from Hebrew (and partly German) into English, French and German, a large part of the footage is showing the silent protagonists of the trial, while a translator – mostly a female voice – is talking for all of them as a voice-over. The artist re-enacts the trial by recreating the silent film scenes of the footage all by herself and is lending her voice to the translator who presents all characters of the play. Thus she is re-narrating the story for the visitors, who can combine the stories, change perspectives and play an active role in the perception of the trial and politics of remembrance.

ACTS

The Appeal
The Testimony
The Verdict

CHARACTERS

The Accused (Eichmann)
The Judge
The Prosecutor
The Defender
A Witness
A Political Journalist

INSTALLATION

Installation set-up with beamer and headphones
WALL (width): 3 m
PROJECTION (width): 2 m
HEADPHONES (width): 1.5 m

PART #1 : Audio

PART #2 : Projection

TECHNICAL SET-UP

SOUND

OK | 1 x mac mini (same for video) > BELONGS TO PZI
OK | 1 x TerraTec Phase 26 (incl. USB cable) > BELONGS TO AYMERIC
OK | 2 x two RCA plugs to 3.5 mm stereo plug > BELONGS TO PZI
OK | 2 x 3.5 mm stereo plug to 6.35 mm stereo plug (1/4" TRS) > BELONGS TO PZI
OK | 2 x Behringer Microamp HA 400 Headphone Amplifier > BELONG TO PZI
OK | 3 x stereo headphones 3m cable and 6.35 mm stereo plug > 1 BELONGS TO NATASA (incl. 1/4" TRS) , 1 TO DANNY (incl. 1/4" TRS), 1 TO PZI (incl. 1/4" TRS)
OK | 1 x power distributor for 4 plugs > BELONGS TO PZI
OK | 1 x 150 cm iron rod with 8 holes > BELONGS TO NATASA

IMAGE

GENERAL

SET-UP INSTRUCTIONS

switch on beamer (resolution 1280 x 800 with 16:10 ratio)
switch on mac mini (should reboot daily by itself)
startup script should start video loop
startup script should satrt audio loop

SCRIPTING

Controlling jack with qjackctl

Running 6 channel mono wav-files with BASH

termianl:~$ ./filename.sh

#!/bin/sh

startjack ()
{
    /usr/bin/jackd -dalsa -dhw:1 -r44100 -p1024 -n2 -o6 &
}

playback ()
{
    ecasound \
        -a:1 -i 1.wav \
        -a:2 -i 2.wav -chmove:1,2 \
        -a:3 -i 3.wav -chmove:1,3 \
        -a:4 -i 1.wav -chmove:1,4 \
        -a:5 -i 2.wav -chmove:1,5 \
        -a:6 -i 3.wav -chmove:1,6 \
        -a:1,2,3,4,5,6 -f:s16,6 -o jack,system
}

while true
do
    if pidof jackd
    then
        playback
    else
        startjack
    fi
done

PROJECT NOTES

Key Words

Leiden mit Leidenschaftlosigkeit versprachlichen
Bilderverbot – kein Bild vom Grauen möglich
Unüberschaubarkeit des Materials
Paradoxon des Zeugens
Creation of Memory
Collective Heardbeat
Erinnerung abspielen
Verfremdungseffekt

Video Samples

[1]

[2]

Dismissed Ideas

Repeatingly reading the testimony of Aveva Fleischmann and running until I can't go on
Same story repeats / doubles / tripples until it gets diffuse and incomprehensible
One voice for all protagonists of the trial (protocolls) > translations > who's speaking? > a story of millions
Telephone (children's play) / Stille Post > memories get difuse, change of certain details
Video gets interrupted by real-estate commercials (like original in 1961)
Image ban > empty (white) tv screens as space for imagination
Nested loops (story within a story) Natasa / Norma Rose / Hanna Arendt / Aveva Fleischmann

LINKS

Youtube Channel - The Eichmann Trial
Transcripts of the Eichmann Trial
Ecasound Documentation
Vim Documentation

This project was brought to you by the GLICKMAN REAL ESTATE CORPORATION.

User:Natasa Siencnik/project3

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