Screen from In the Realms of Gold, 2012
Remembering Carthage
“In the Realms of Gold (2012) opens with a pastoral landscape, which is rudely interrupted by the sudden appearance of a camouflaged soldier. He seems to lack autonomy, unable to exit this rural environment. This inability to escape the ‘real world’ is also evident in the 14-minute Remember Carthage (2012–13), in which the narrator travels back in time, trying to locate an uninhabited ‘resort’ in the Sahara desert. His journey remains unresolved. An uncanny feeling is instilled by the narrator’s descriptions: he seems somehow familiar with these places, such as a Tunisian marketplace, even though he has never visited them before. Unlike the video-games – with their fulfillment of desires and multiple choices – that provide the sources for these works, in Rafman’s films there is no possibility of autonomy. Real and virtual worlds collapse in on each other, until one comes to seem much like the other.” (Frieze Magazine, 2013)