Prayer is an essential part of the High Holidays. The artists LoVid through their diverse practice use language, song, music, video, and electronics to connect people. Their video garment Retzuot (ShinShinAgam), which is currently on view in Reinventing Ritual, brings these concepts of prayer and connection together into one beautiful and thought-provoking work. The artists have just posted video documentation of how to wrap and wear Retzuot, helping us to better understand how this piece functions as reinvented tefillin.
The following is LoVid’s statement about the work, as published in the exhibition catalogue:
Retzuot (ShinShinAgam) is inspired by the head
and arm pieces of tefillin. The straps of tefillin
reminded us of electronic conductive wires,
which we use in our media-based, audiovisual
work. In a similar way, tefillin straps conduct
and preserve information that is in the scrolls
and that has passed down through history.
In Retzuot (ShinShinAgam), the scrolls are represented
by circuit boards, which generate
continuous live video. The video image is a
minimal representation of the letter shin,
which in traditional tefillin appears on the
headpiece box.
This fall, LoVid will be leading two hands-on workshops about making Judaica with simple electronics. The first is for all ages during A Day of Reinventing Ritual at the Jewish Theological Seminary on November 15, and the second is a family workshop about creating electric menorahs at The Jewish Museum on December 13.