The Great Seal
2016–2018
Interactive installation/performance. Teleprompters, microphone, touch screen, speakers, 12 × 12-foot custom-printed rug, HD video, HD monitors. 20-minute experience.
The Great Seal is an immersive installation that investigates the intersection between art, propaganda, religion, and politics. The piece invites viewers to step onto a fictitious stage at the annual Washington D.C. Summit of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and assume the role of keynote speaker. CUFI mobilizes millions of American Evangelical conservatives who view Jewish rule over the land of Israel/Palestine a precondition for Christ's second coming and the imminent Battle of Armageddon.
By using a presidential teleprompter and a karaoke 'sing-along' machine, participants are invited to perform speeches compiled from those delivered at past CUFI summits.
Throughout the interactive performance, the visitors will stand on a rug emblazoned with the design for the original Great Seal of the United States, first proposed by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson in 1776, and subsequently rejected by Congress. Franklin and Jefferson's Great Seal reimagines the biblical story of the Israelites' exodus from Egypt with America framed as the 'New Zion'.
The work was originally shot in 2015 and 2016, just before the first Trump presidency began, yet it sheds a light on a subset of those that ushered in his victory and the role of Christian Zionism and messianic eschatology in American interventions in the Middle East, particularly in relation to Palestine/Israel.
Press & Writing
Messianic Affinities: Tali Keren's The Great Seal and Un-Charting. Chelsea Haines. In Imagined Israel(s): Projections of the Jewish State in the Arts, edited by Rocco Giansante and Luna Goldberg. Brill Publishers, 2023.
Paper, Glass, Algorithm: Teleprompters and the Invisibility of Screens. Tali Keren and Neta Alexander. Journal of Visual Culture, 2021.
The Voice and the Body in and as a Collective—Commoning and Refusal. Maayan Sheleff. In (Un)Commoning Voices and (Non)Communal Bodies, 2021.
A Match Made in Heaven. Noah Simblist. In Tali Keren: The Great Seal, 2020.
Mis-Performance on Tali Keren's Work. Yael Messer and Gilad Reich. Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, 2019.
Best of 2017: Our Top 20 Exhibitions Around the World. Hrag Vartanian. Hyperallergic, December 2017.
Public Programs & Activations
The Great Seal EYEBEAM Activation Activated with neuroscientist Suzanne Dikker, writer and curator Kareem Estefan, historian Suzanne Schneider, and performance activist Reverend Billy Talen, followed by a conversation.
Eyebeam, Brooklyn, NY, 2018. Curated by Sally Szwed.
The Great Seal EYEBEAM Activation Activated with media scholar Kinjal Dave, followed by a conversation.
Eyebeam, Brooklyn, NY, 2018. Curated by Sally Szwed.