The Israeli landscape features many public monuments and memorials, most of them erected by commemorative institutions to promote familiar national narratives like heroism, sacrifice, and unity. The “National Trinity” project reflects on these monuments and memorials’ aesthetic and cultural principles by examining the holy trinity of Israeli sovereignty, three sites located on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem: the National Military Cemetery, the Memorial Park where the Great Leaders of the Nation are buried, and Yad Vashem. By employing narratives of form based on the spatial rituals of myth, bereavement, and death, these three sites direct their visitors’ movements and behavior and serve as instruments of national propaganda.
Altaratz used photogrammetry and 3D model manipulation to create a physical 3D object—the average of all three memorials. He then mapped and projected video onto the object to recreate the emotional experience of visiting Mount Herzl. The result is a reflection on how monuments with shared characteristics like void spaces and symmetry are used to evoke emotional responses.
A single-channel video projection, futured at Jerusalem Design Week 2023.
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