Number 16 [2024]

“It is a thrilling vision, but it is an illusion that the puppet is real. Just as it is an illusion that robotic weapons and deadly algorithms are autonomous,” writes Cathrine Taylor in her 2017 book “You, Me, and the Violence.” Thus, she captures this idea of our new-old extensions, reaching out further and further away from the body, to an almost autonomous act of killing.

Number 16 uses mechanisms of puppetry alongside fragments of testimonial texts and actions by soldiers to explore the horror and violence of wartime and its aftermath.
The protagonist is a puppet M16 rifle performing in different environments: a theater, a 3D pillbox, and a Polish soldier’s territory. In this space, the humanized rifle shares a voice with his operator. A trauma-driven hybrid is created: an unarmed man and a weapon.

The text in the movie was composed using sentences from the archive of Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence.
The 3D model of the pillbox was created by Shabtai Pinchevsky.
The real Rehavia Pillbox was built by the British Mandate over Palestine during the Arab revolts of 1936-1939. This Pillbox is closed to the public, and was neglected approximately for the last 70 years.