Even Further

Even Further refers to a tale told in Thee Psychick Bible of an “Even Furthur” bus driven by the cult English band Psychic TV, who were inspired by the name “Furthur,” which was given to another bus, the Merry Prankster, driven by the American countercultural icon Ken Kesey.

My Even Further consists of three elements — video, sound and text — which seek to complement each other.

The film begins with a bus entering a fixed frame.

People step off and they follow a guide, of sorts, who leads them towards the water. The group stands in the distance at the water’s edge, listening to the guide tell her story.

When she is finished, the crew boards the bus and leave the frame.

The moment the bus leaves the frame, a melody begins to play, performed by a mechanical music box located in the far corner of the exhibition space.

The music box plays a melody, the authorship of which cannot be reliably discovered. There is a Greek song about love, and there is also a Jewish song about a young man’s farewell before departing to fight in the Russo-Japanese war.

Both were written about 110 years ago, and became widely popular. Naturally, researchers, depending on their national preferences, attribute the authorship to the Greeks or the Jews.

In general, the relationship between Jews and Greeks, especially in the south of Ukraine, is filled with vivid and dramatic episodes. The first Jewish pogrom in the Russian Empire took place in Odesa in 1821, and was initiated by the Greek population, who spread the rumor that the Jews had killed the patriarch in Constantinople.

My interest in Greco-Jewish relations is due primarily to my background. On my mother’s side, I have many Jewish relatives. My father’s side of the family is Greek. Examining the similarities and differences between the fates of Greeks and Jews, I wondered, where could my Greek and Jewish relatives hypothetically have met? 

New York Times by Jason Farago (EN)

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