Stumbling Through the Uncanny Valley: Sculpture and Self in the Age of Computer Generated Imagery

July 13 – September 7, 2019 Opening: Saturday, July 13 at 8 pm

Participants: 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

CCA – Center for Contemporary Art Tel Aviv is please to present “Stumbling Through the Uncanny Valley: Sculpture and Self in the Age of Computer Generated Imagery”, a group exhibition spanning the entire building. 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 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 and is accompanied by a booklet in English, Hebrew and Arabic, and a public program including roundtables, performances, and curator’s tours in English and Hebrew.

The exhibition, related booklet, and public program were made possible with the support of 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 Foundation for the Arts, Tel Aviv, the Czech Center in Tel Aviv and Smartwings. The film Marry Fuck Kill was produced with the support of the Israel Lottery Council For Culture & Arts.

A new iteration of this project will be held at kim? Contemporary Art Centre in Riga under the title “For a Nervous Spirit on a Dance Floor (Faktura in the Age of Post Optical).” The exhibition will be presented in 2020 and will be curated by Zane Onckule.

PUBLIC PROGRAM:

July 13, Saturday at 7 pm: “Contemporary Art and New Technology: Love at First Sight, Fatal Attraction, Transitory Relationships?” with exhibiting artists Ruth Patir, Neringa Černiauskaitė (Pakui Hardware), Santa France, and Ronnie Karfiol, moderated by Chen Tamir (in English)

July 18, Thursday at 7 pm: Self-Study – Open Lab, lecture performance with exhibiting artist Daniel Landau in collaboration with Maya Magnat (in Hebrew)

July 20, Saturday at 12 pm: Exhibition tour with Chen Tamir (in Hebrew)

July 25, Thursday at 7 pm: “RIP: Rest in Peace or Rest in Power? Mortality (or Lack Thereof) in the Digital Era” with exhibiting artists Jakub Jansa and Miri Segal, moderated by Lior Zalmanson, founder of Print Screen Festival (in English)

August 3, Saturday at 12 pm: Exhibition tour with Chen Tamir (in English)

August 8 and 10, Thursday and Saturday, at 7 pm: Video Performance piece Leehoru by exhibiting artist Nimrod Gershoni (two sessions)

September 3, Tuesday at 7 pm: Self-Study – Open Lab, lecture performance with exhibiting artist Daniel Landau in collaboration with Maya Magnat (in Hebrew)

September 7, Saturday at 12 pm: Exhibition tour with Chen Tamir (in Hebrew)

Image: Ruth Patir, Marry, Fuck, Kill, 2019.