Yael Eylat Van-Essen PhD – Curator / Researcher

Digital technologies developed over the last few decades are the source of many changes that have occurred in the way we experience the world. Life patterns that we had grown used to, have been eroded by the use of these technologies. Virtual space is manifested in diverse ways on the screens of computers, tablets, and cell phones, and in various virtual reality and augmented reality platforms. Our newfound ability to be present simultaneously in networked and split environments, and to communicate concurrently with different places around the world, redefines the relations between time and space, as traditional spatial coordinates collapse. We squeeze both reality and futuristic or imaginary scenarios into the same space; we hybridize various spaces, and interface with an expanse of big data that dwells within the abstract area of the immense information cloud.

By existing in other times and places, we can sever the links between body and presence, which were formerly inseparable in our familiar physical space. The Internet, which largely defines our persona in the world, has become an integral part of our reality. We no longer experience it as merely tangential to our existence, but perceive it as a space that directly affects our conduct, the way we move from one place to another, our communication, information processing, and our acquisition of knowledge, as individuals and as part of a larger community. New methods of creating, consuming, and distributing images have altered the perceptibility of space and its esthetic value, affecting the roles they play in reorganizing our social and political awareness.

The exhibition “Fragmented Spaces, Spliced Identities” explores this new reality, in which familiar spatial and identity patterns fall apart and are replaced by new formations that take shape in real time. On display are works by ten Israeli artists working in the sphere of new media, which address issues related to the significance of integrating digital technologies. The works refer to the way we experience the global and local contexts of space. They also explore the meaning of “human,” and the way this concept is represented in an era in which identity, compassion, concern, beauty, and attention take on new meanings. In creating their works, the participating artists have used a new “palette” of implements and devices. The works feature robots performing various actions, computer codes that creates unique real-time displays at any given moment, a digital scanner that transforms the basic concepts of traditional photography, various types of sensors that enable the sensing of space and the people who are in it, and an augmented reality application that explores the meaning of documentation in multi-layered spaces.