Veneta Androva

Welcome to Oasis. 

You find yourself in an adaptive system – such as traffic, economics, social networks, trade markets, politics and poker. 

You have been introduced to the system; you can now start the journey. Walking through a computer-generated desert you follow a fantasized and yet unknown quest as you are guided by an avatar’s voice, occupying both roles of moderator and narrator. Along the path, elements appear and vanish as they came; screen, pictures or surfaces of projections, they will bring you information about the place of desire you are heading to.
 
Close up. Oasis: 2800 square meters of gaming floor, 220 slot machines, 35 tables. This insulated and particular edifice was built in Jericho in 1998 as a casino. In the midst of a complex geopolitical situation, it was meant to be a fertile spot for investment and gaming all the while instrument for facilitating communication and peace processes before being infested by corruption and conflicts. It closed its doors in 2000 shortly after beginning the second intifada. 
 
How utopian is peace? Can you gamble for it? Can you win peace as a jackpot and how likely is to win in gambling?
 
Veneta Androva created the video-installation presented in the space Display in Berlin by combining documentary material with animation work and simulated environments that are related under a multilayered narrative spine. Situated in the protagonist’s position, the viewer is the player, involved in an intricate immersive display also given by the moderator’s tactical game strategies or the narrator’s comments and documented observations. 
 
The Good Fight is on the Gaming Floor.

Text by Marie DuPasquier