Ben Yehuda Street, Jerusalem, January 15th, 2004 book, app. 4kg, weapons 1:1 Florian Conradi, Georg Molterer A person carrying a weapon will by an external person not be conceived separately as [a person] and [a weapon], but as one entity of person and weapon [P+W], where the weapon remains the stronger of the two; how strong depends on size and appearance and how used this external person is to the sight of weapons. If, and in what way the weapon is used still depends - only - on the characteristics and personality of the person. [P+W] has a perceptive emphasis on W, but acts only according to P (who is of course in turn slightly changed by carrying W) Aim: the aim of the book is to split up and sort out this imbalance. Each spread depicts the weapon in original size on one side and one statement about the person on the other side. Those short statements have been chosen to make the reader aware of the fact of the person behind the weapon, but deprive him of the chance to judge this person according to their personality. Process of perception: at first similar to any confrontation with a weapon in public space. The visual overweight of the weapon will at first claim all the attention. Readers who are familiar with the sight of weapons are less impressed, than those who have never seen one before; some notice the persons statement earlier, some later. The difference is that not the surrounding, but the reader himself controls the situation of perception. The second step, noticing the person, is also not so different from seeing a person behind a weapon in reality, but can, unlike on the streets, not be avoided. This difference in the second perceptive step then triggers an unconscious third step, which will force the user to a certain extent to split up [P+W] into P and W in real life. Implementation: the pictures have been taken on 15.01.2004 on Ben Yehuda Street, a lively pedestrian zone in Jerusalem. On this particular day, in this particular street we asked every person openly carrying a weapon if we could take a picture of the weapon and ask a few personal questions. 3 people agreed. We have military weapons as well as privat ones. Production: the book is handmade. The pictures are taken on 4x5 “ and scanned. The guns on the pages are plotted 1:1 size on matte-heavy paper and the same paper is used for the cover. It is plain white with an embossment of location and date, but weighs 4 kg (the approximate weight of an M16). The weight is reached by hiding two big metal plates inside each cover sheet. It is optically neutral but gives a haptic introduction to the topic in size and weight, bringing the reader closer to somebody carrying a weapon. The layout and embossment on both sides of the cover make it also possible to read the book from right to left as a reference to Hebrew and Arabic script.