TD: These projects also hold a historical value for you. In the case of the Mobile Archive you are preserving videos of cultural value for posterity. The other night at Parsons I also asked you about the trend of reenactment, and you said that the reenactment, for you, was a return to the 'scene of the crime'—to a place where cultural violence had been committed. This articulation of reenactment seems a unique way of thinking about the uses of reenactment as a contemporary art format.

GE: Something I find strange in the United States  talking about the Israeli/Palestinian issue, is that there are no similar issues here. There is no Iraq, no border of USA/Mexico, no question of liminality. Israel/Palestine is very visible worldwide. It is a playground for experiments; not just weapons, but other kinds of experiments—psychological, etc. It is strange to me that more people aren't paying attention to similarities here in the US. Israel/Palestine seems exotic here, but I don't find it exotic. I'm not sure if it has to do with the US media...

CT: You're right. It's not something that's felt here on a daily basis. It's not something that's acknowledged. The first headline in the news is not Iraq; it's very much suppressed. For myself, being an Israeli/Canadian-American person, it's a very different feel. In Israel you can't escape. People try in Israel, but forces inevitably distract you. Here you could live in a bubble—even in New York.

TD: The militant ‘60s slogan comes to mind: Bring the war home. The problem seems that there are not enough people bringing the war home; the situation abroad, the wars, the plight of others are just not in your face everyday. Not through media coverage, nor through the mainstream art world or the popular mainstream.

CT: I've been reading a lot about the Israeli marketplace, and how successfully Israel has co-opted war and security as their principle commodities. It used to be that war was really bad for Israel because it meant people wouldn't do business with us. But now it's actually good—people do more business with us as we've gotten better at being at war.

TD: And the United States has obviously contributed a lot to that transformation.

GE: This is why I have called the Middle East a "laboratory." The Israeli economy is largely built on tracking civilians, surveillance equipment…

TD: So when you say Israel/Palestine is a "laboratory for mobility" you mean that also in the sense of ways that the government is studying how people actually move.

GE: Of course.

TD: Because I was thinking of the Mobile Archive as the laboratory....