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Any time I’ve gone onto NYFA’s (New York Foundation for the Arts) website in the past month, I’ve been mesmerized by the looping 10-second video playing at the top of the page. In part it’s the visuals that are immediately intriguing; a man in a wheelchair being lifted via pulley up high over the water. Add to that the squeaky noise of the pulley, and it’s just hard not to be drawn in for several loops-worth of viewing. Turns out this is a shortened version of Israeli video artist Oded Hirsch’s 10-minute piece titled 50 Blue. After googling around I discovered through the New York Times that in the longer version, ”a young man struggles to push an older man in a wheelchair through a swampy landscape and down to the water’s edge. There, helpers in yellow slickers hoist the wheelchair up to an elevated platform. No one says a word, leaving us to wonder whether the view is worth the strenuous, muck-filled journey. Learning that the young man is Mr. Hirsch’s brother, and that the older one is his father, and that the site is the Sea of Galilee makes the whole thing seem like a parable.” So now, not only are the visuals and sounds captivating, but the story itself adds an equally engaging third dimension. You can see the video here.

via nyfa