Ruti Sela
1974, Kudüs. Tel Aviv'de yaşıyor.
Born in 1974, Jerusalem. Lives in Tel Aviv.
Maayan Amir
1978, Hedera. Tel Aviv'de yaşıyor.
Born in 1978, Hedera. Lives in Tel Aviv.

In their individual practices Ruti Sela and Maayan Amir explore issues of Israeli identity and mechanisms of creating a notion of the Other. Their collaborative video trilogy Beyond Guilt (2003-05) looks into the entanglement of sex and the structural violence of the state. Through unapologetic images of brazen dialogues, seemingly erotic conversations often take an unexpected turn, and conflict erupts where we least expect it, exposing the overpowering influence of militarism on Israeli society.
The video, Beyond Guilt #2 (2004) takes place in a hotel room in Tel Aviv, where two young women have used an Internet chat service to invite men to the hotel. But rather than having sex, each conversation gradually leads to the army and the omnipresent war. All the men have been in the army, and refer to this as a seemingly normal, everyday experience, a high school of sorts. The work doesn't moralise and asks for no sympathy. In its refusal to exercise any judgment, it questions the social rules and roles accepted by the majority of society as natural, or at best inevitable.