The Silence of the Sirens

Fragment, magnify, delay. The Silence of the Sirens, Tamar Kisch’s first solo piece, deals with the capture of bodily images through photography. What can the image capture, and what will remain forgotten?

The title is borrowed from Franz Kafka’s short story of the same name (1917), which recounts Ulysses’ confrontation with the sirens and their deadly seductive voices. “At the very moment they were closest to him, he no longer knew them”, sums up a paradoxical sense of awareness and oblivion, underlining the ephemeral and elusive nature of perception. During the performance, a scream echoes like a repetitive melody that tries to hold on to a precise but muffled detail, a scream and a sound swallowed up.

The act of photographing invites the body to journey through a diversity of forms, states, and physical qualities. The camera’s perspective leaves a speculative space for the viewer’s imagination. In this space, certain details catch the eye, pierce it with intention, and remain anonymous. The artist takes his inspiration from Roland Barthes’ La Chambre claire (1980). The performance is situated between the Studium (the social, historical, and cultural meanings that can be understood in a photograph) and the Punctum (the element of the photograph that creates an emotional impact in the viewer), creating images on stage that relate to time and place while touching on emotional realms through unmediated details.