“Stumbling Through the Uncanny Valley: Sculpture and Self in the Age of Computer Generated Imagery” is a group exhibition including artworks by Cory Arcangel, Aleksandra Domanović, Carmi Dror, Adi Fluman, Santa France, Nimrod Gershuni, Nir Harel, Jakub Jansa and Karolína Juříková, Haviv Kaptzon, Ronnie Karfiol, Christopher Kulendran Thomas, Daniel Landau in collaboration with Maya Magnat, Oliver Laric, Alicia Mersy, nabbteeri, Katja Novitskova, Pakui Hardware, Eva Papamargariti, Ruth Patir, Andrea Pekárková, Heather Phillipson, Seth Price, Jon Rafman, Elinor Salomon, Jacolby Satterwhite, Miri Segal, Timur Si-Qin, Jasmin Vardi, Andrew Norman Wilson, and Lu Yang.

The exhibition main starting point is the fact that we spend so much time looking at screens that show us images created by computers rather than cameras or humans. This new aesthetic filters through our daily lives and gives form to a new mode of visual representation. Following these premises, the exhibition examines the boundaries of this phenomenon through the work of more than 30 pioneering artists from around the globe. The exhibition title refers to the term “The uncanny valley,” that was coined in the 1970s to describe the unsettling feeling when androids (humanoid robots) or audio / visual representations of people closely resemble humans, but are not fully realistic or convincing. This dissonance is found today in computer-generated imagery (CGI) that now form our visual world and artists today are responding to and deconstructing the resultant visual landscape.

The exhibition is conceived as a major spotlight on this medium shift, drawing inspiration from the stream of “Post-Internet Art.” “Post-Internet” does not mean a world after the Internet, but rather work being made in a widely networked world and focusing on the visual culture that is its byproduct, a culture that has become more and more globalized and connected, bringing together artists from different regions of the world, from Asia to Central Europe, from the Middle East to Baltic Countries. These artists are not only producing art with new tools, they are looking deeply at a new world order in which synthetic images make up a large part of what we take in. In this world, mediated by technology, the physical and the virtual merge, and the Internet complicates how the self and the other meet.

“Stumbling Through the Uncanny Valley: Sculpture and Self in the Age of Computer Generated Imagery” is curated by Chen Tamir.

The exhibition is accompanied by a booklet in Hebrew, Arabic and English, a roundtable moderated by Chen Tamir on July 13, performances by Daniel Landau in collaboration with Maya Magnat on July 18 and September 3, exhibition tours by Chen Tamir in Hebrew and English on July 20, August 3 and September 7, a roundtable moderated by Lior Zalmanson on July 25 and a performance by Nimrod Gershoni on August 8 and 10.

Stumbling Through the Uncanny Valley: Sculpture and Self in the Age of Computer Generated Imagery” is supported by Michelle Pollak, the Ostrovsky Family Fund (OFF), ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen and Taboola; additional support has been provided by Gil Brandes, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Lithuanian Culture Institute, Bundeskanzleramt – the Arts and Culture Division of the Federal Chancellery of Austria, State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia and kim? Contemporary Art Centre in Riga, the Yehoshua Rabinovich Tel Aviv Foundation for the Arts, Tel Aviv, the Czech Center in Tel Aviv and Smartwings; the film Marry Fuck Kill by Ruth Patir was produced with the support of Mifal HaPais Council for the Culture and Arts.

Images

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“Stumbling Through the Uncanny Valley: Sculpture and Self in the Age of Computer Generated Imagery,” 2019

View of the exhibition at CCA Tel Aviv-Yafo

Photo: Eyal Agivayev

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“Stumbling Through the Uncanny Valley: Sculpture and Self in the Age of Computer Generated Imagery,” 2019

View of the exhibition at CCA Tel Aviv-Yafo; artworks by Timur Si-Qin (left) and Adi Fluman (right)

Photo: Eyal Agivayev

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“Stumbling Through the Uncanny Valley: Sculpture and Self in the Age of Computer Generated Imagery,” 2019

View of the exhibition at CCA Tel Aviv-Yafo; artworks by Jasmin Vardi (left), Aleksandra Domanović (center) and Ronnie Karfiol (right)

Photo: Eyal Agivayev

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“Stumbling Through the Uncanny Valley: Sculpture and Self in the Age of Computer Generated Imagery,” 2019

View of the exhibition at CCA Tel Aviv-Yafo; artworks by Nir Harel (floor) and nabbteeri (projection)

Photo: Eyal Agivayev