Table Of ContentThis book offers a prophetic vision of art in a digital future. Expanding upon the emerging artistic prospects A
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made possible by technology, it explores the new directions in art that have arisen between the planes of science,
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technological development and cultural expression. Focusing upon the epochal shift from pre- to post-modernism,
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the author examines the interrelations between digital age art and Jewish consciousness. The contours of art in a N
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postmodern era shape the framework of the book. Using both analytic and alternative Jewish methodologies, the
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author offers a diverse and exciting range of theories regarding the expansion and redefi nition of art in a digital R
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dimension. The author’s personal artwork – a vibrant fusion of the mystical and technological – is included in the
book to exemplify and complement the theoretical basis of the study. A revolutionary investigation into the aesthetic T
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form that imaginatively envisages the vast potential of art in a cyber future.
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“This Hebraic-postmodern quest is for a dialogue midway on Jacob’s ladder
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where man and God, artist and society, and artwork and viewer/participant engage in ongoing commentary.”
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– DR. RANDALL RHODES, FROSTBURG STATE UNIVERSITY, MARYLAND, USA.
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“Mel Alexenberg, a very sophisticated artist and scholar of much experience in the complex playing fi eld of
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art-science-technology, addresses the rarely asked question: How does the ‘media magic’ communicate content?”
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– OTTO PIENE, PROFESSOR EMERITUS AND DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR ADVANCED VISUAL STUDIES,
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MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, CAMBRIDGE, USA.
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“This is a wonderful and important book.”
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– RON BURNETT, PRESIDENT OF EMILY CARR INSTITUTE OF ART AND DESIGN IN VANCOUVER, CANADA.
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“The author succeeds in opening a unique channel to the universe of present D
and future art in a highly original and inspiring way.” I
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– MICHAEL BIELICKY, PROFESSOR OF MEDIA ARTS AT THE ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS IN PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC,
AND AT HOCHSCHULE FUR GESTALTUNG, ZKM CENTER FOR ART AND MEDIA, IN KARLSRUHE, GERMANY. I
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“This book is simply a must read analysis for anyone interested in where we L
and the visual arts are going in our future.” A
– DR. MOSHE DROR, PRESIDENT OF WORLD NETWORK OF RELIGIOUS FUTURISTS, G
AND ISRAEL COORDINATOR OF WORLD FUTURE SOCIETY. E
ISBN 1-84150-136-0
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Praise for
TThhee FFuuttuurree ooff AArrtt iinn aa DDiiggiittaall AAggee:: FFrroomm HHeelllleenniissttiicc ttoo HHeebbrraaiicc CCoonnsscciioouussnneessss
‘In his book, Mel Alexenberg navigates his artistic insight amid the labyrinthian complexities, explosions,
and revolutions of the past forty years of art, tracing his way amid questions of science and religion,
technology and environment, education, culture, and cosmos. Everyone will find his book full of new
vantage points and vistas, fresh insights that give a uniquely personal history of artistic time that indeed
points to new and open futures.’
– Lowry Burgess, Dean, Professor of Art, Distinguished Fellow of the Studio for Creative Inquiry, Carnegie
Mellon University, Pittsburgh.
‘This is a wonderful and important book. The author links the history of art to the important role played
by various forms of thinking in the Jewish tradition and connects that to the emerging culture of digital
expression. Brilliant insights and new ways of seeing make this a must-read for anyone interested in the
intellectual history of images in the 21st Century.’
– Ron Burnett, author of How Images Think(MIT Press, 2005), President of Emily Carr Institute of Art
and Design in Vancouver, Canada, and Artist/Designer at the New Media Innovation Center.
‘Mel Alexenberg, a very sophisticated artist and scholar of much experience in the complex playing field of
art-science-technology, addresses the rarely asked question: How does the ‘media magic’ communicate content
– addressing even the most ‘intangible’ (to media zealots): Judeo/Christian belief, the Bible, the Torah!’
– Otto Piene, Professor Emeritus and Director, MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge.
‘The author succeeds in opening a unique channel to the universe of present and future art in a highly original
and inspiring way. His connection between ancient concepts (Judaism) and the present digital age will force us
to thoroughly rethink our ideas about art, society and technology. This book is evidence that Golem is alive!’
– Michael Bielicky, Professor of Media Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, Czech Republic, and
at Hochschule fur Gestaltung, ZKM Center for Art and Media, in Karlsruhe, Germany.
‘This book is simply a must read analysis for anyone interested in where we and the visual arts are going
in our future. Alexenberg has provided us with powerful new lenses to allow us to ‘see’ how postmodern
art movements and classical Judaic traditions compliment and fructify one another as the visual arts are
now enlarging and adding a spiritual dimension to our lives in the digital era.’
– Moshe Dror, co-author of Futurizing the Jews: Alternative Futures for the 21st Century(Praeger, 2003),
President of World Network of Religious Futurists, and Israel Coordinator of World Future Society.
‘This Hebraic-postmodern quest is for a dialogue midway on Jacob’s ladder where man and God, artist
and society, and artwork and viewer/participant engage in ongoing commentary.’
– Randall Rhodes, Professor and Chairman, Department of Visual Art, Frostburg State University,
Maryland.
‘The Future of Art in a Digital Age: From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness opens new vistas in the
attempts to reconcile the newest developments in digital art and postmodern critical perspectives with the
ancient concerns of the arts with the spiritual. It offers fresh perspectives in how we can learn from Greek
and Jewish thought to understand the present era.’
– Stephen Wilson, author of Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology (MIT Press,
2002) and Professor of Conceptual and Information Arts at San Francisco State University.
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To my wonderful wife, Miriam, our children: Iyrit and Shlomo, Ari and Julie, Ron and Miri,
and Moshe Yehuda, our grandchildren: Elan, Inbal and Moshe, Maytav, Or, Rachelle, Razel,
Renana, Shirel, Tagel, Tali, Yahel, Yishai, and our great-grandson: Yechiel Eliad Menachem.
From generation to generation, they will dwell in the Land of Israel
where the wilderness will rejoice over them,
the desert will be glad and blossom like a lily.
Her wilderness will be made like Eden
and her desert like a Divine garden.
Joy and gladness will be found there,
thanksgiving and the sound of music.
(Isaiah 35:1, 50:3)
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The Future of Art in a Digital Age
The Future of Art in a Digital Age
From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness
From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness
By Mel Alexenberg
By Mel Alexenberg
inintteelllleecctt
Bristol,UK
Portland,OR,USA
First Published in the UK in 2006 by Intellect Books, PO Box 862, Bristol BS99 1DE, UK
Copyright © 2006 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover Design: Gabriel Solomons Copy Editor: Holly Spradling
Typesetting: Mac Style, Nafferton, E. Yorkshire
Electronic ISBN 1-84150-9515 / ISBN 1-84150-136-0
Printed and bound in Great Britain by The Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wiltshire
Art-Digital Age.qxd 26/7/06 10:21 am Page 5
C
ONTENTS
Acknowledgements 7
Introduction – Postmodern Paradigm Shift:From Hellenistic to Hebraic
Consciousness 9
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum 10
Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum 12
Hebraic Consciousness and Postmodernism 13
Roots and Globalization 14
Down-to-Earth Spirituality 17
Multiple Perspectives 18
Talmud and the Internet 21
Engaging the Bible in a Playful Spirit 24
Intergenerational Collaboration in Polycultural Art 26
1 Semiotic Perspectives – Redefining Art in a Digital Age 33
From Representational to Presentational Art 34
Iconic Art: Resemblance 35
Symbolic Art: Consensus 38
Indexic Art: Documentation 42
Identic Art: Being 45
Prioric Art: Proposing 49
Dialogic Art: Interacting 57
2 Morphological Perspectives – Space-Time Structures of Visual Culture 65
Latent Structure and Transformative Processes 66
Alternative Perspectives 68
Mythological Perspective 70
Logical Perspective 73
Ecological Perspective 75
Origins of Ecological Perspective in Science 78
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6 | THE FUTURE OF ART IN ADIGITALAGE: FROM HELLENISTIC TO HEBRAIC CONSCIOUSNESS
Origins of Ecological Perspective in Modern Art 80
From Deconstruction to Reconstruction 84
Morphological Analysis of Visual Culture: Biblical Fringes 89
Art as Visual Midrash: Four Wings of America 94
Sky Art: From Munich to the Tzin Wilderness 98
3 Kabbalistic Perspectives – Creative Process in Art and Science 109
Spiritual Bits and Bytes 110
Biblical Roots of Kabbalah 114
Ten Sephirot of Creative Process 118
Digitized Homage to Rembrandt 122
Cyberangels and AT&T 127
Creativity in Art and Science 129
Pathways to Beauty 139
4 Halakhic Perspectives – Creating a Beautiful Life 143
Beyond Religion and Science 144
Lessons from 9/11: Choose Life not Death 147
Tower of Babel: Disastrous Creativity 150
Eruv at Sodom: Honoring Human Diversity 151
Beautifying Actions: Adding Light to the World 155
LightsOROT at MIT: Learning Torah Through Art 158
Responsive Art in a Digital Age 169
Index 175
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Acknowledgements
This book has its origins in the summers of my childhood when my parents,Abraham and Jeanne,
set me free among the sowbugs,salamanders,and swallows of the Catskill Mountains.My days
were filled studying the behavior of the creatures of the forests and ponds and making drawings
and paintings of them interacting in their natural habitats as well as in imaginary worlds of my
creation.Boundaries between science and art were diaphanous in my youthful mind.Indoors,my
parents created a warm loving Jewish home for my sister,Fran,and me,and provided me with a
yeshiva education.
I learned systems thinking and ecological perspective in science from my teacher and mentor at
Queens College,biology professor Max Hecht.At New York University,art department chair-
man Howard Conant had the daring to facilitate a biologist earning an interdisciplinary doctor-
ate through the art department,rare in the 1960’s.I had enthusiastic support for my research on
psychology of aesthetic experience in art and science from my dissertation committee:art edu-
cator Prabha Sahasrabudhe,physicist Morris Shamos,and psychologist Janice Gorn.
I was blessed to have had the opportunity to explore the intersections of art,science,technology,
and Jewish consciousness with my teachers and colleagues.Foremost are my decades of dialogue
with the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Schneerson,Rabbi Moshe Dror,Yitzhaq Hayutman,and
the artists Yaacov Agam, Uri Levi, and Avraham Pinkas, my co-authoring papers with Rabbi
Norman Lamm and Rabbi Alter Ben-Zion Metzger of Yeshiva University,my collaborations with
museum curators Sylvia Herskowitz,Ori Soltes,Michaela Hajkova,and my colleagues Margaret
Mead at Columbia University and Otto Piene at MIT,and my studies with Rabbi Yisrael Avihai,
head of the Bet-El Yeshiva for Kabbalists in the Old City of Jerusalem.
I learned through dialogue with my students in my courses:“Art in Jewish Thought”at the College
of Judea and Samaria in Ariel,Israel,and Emunah College in Jerusalem,“Environmental Art”at
New World School of the Arts in Miami,“Fine Arts with Computers”at Pratt Institute in New
York,“Art,Technology and Culture”at MIT,“Aesthetic Education”at Bar-Ilan University,“Mor-
phodynamics: Design of Natural Systems”at Columbia University,and “Art, Science and Edu-
cation”at Tel Aviv University.
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8 |THE FUTURE OF ARTIN A DIGITALAGE: FROM HELLENISTIC TO HEBRAIC CONSCIOUSNESS
In addition to having the love and support of my wife,Miriam,and our children,I have had the
amazing opportunity to have them as learning partners in exploring the ideas that flow through
this book.Miriam is my artistic collaborator,the high touch counterpart for my high tech lean-
ings.Ari shared a studio/lab with me at MIT where we collaborated on developing responsive
biofeedback artworks.I am especially grateful for Ari’s help in creating the website www.melalex-
enberg.comat which readers can find full-color images of artworks by the author and links to art-
works by other artists described in this book.Ron is a rabbi and biologist who helped me clarify
concepts I developed in the kabbalistic and halakhic chapters.Moshe,a student of international
relations,interested me in exploring connections between globalization and roots in the digital
age.My daughter,Iyrit,is a whirlwind of creative energies who is a sparkling inspiration.
I owe a special debt of gratitude to Amos Safrai,head of Emunah College,and his son Ilan for
working with me on translating this book into Hebrew.Translating Jewish thought into its orig-
inal language has forced me to rethink and revise the English version. I appreciate the profes-
sionalism of May Yao of Intellect Books and the anonymous reader whose valuable suggestions
streamlined my book.
Mel Alexenberg
College of Judea and Samaria
Ariel,Israel
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Introduction – Postmodern
Paradigm Shift: From Hellenistic to
Hebraic Consciousness
If Israelite thinking is to be characterized,it is obvious first to call it dynamic,vigorous,passionate,and
sometimes quite explosive in kind;correspondingly Greek thinking is static,peaceful,moderate,and
harmonious in kind.1
Thorleif Boman
The Greeks and the Jews are the two peoples whose worldviews have most influenced the way we think and
act.Each of them from angles so different has left us with the inheritance of its genius and wisdom.No
two cities have counted more with Mankind than Athens and Jerusalem.Their messages in religion,
philosophy,and art have been the main guiding light in modern faith and culture.2
Winston Churchill
The worldview of ancient Greece revived in Renaissance Europe dominated Western art and
architecture until the rise of modernism.The transition to modernism and postmodernism in
American art and architecture represents a paradigm shift from the Hellenistic to the Hebraic
roots of Western culture exemplified by the two Guggenheim art museums – Frank Lloyd
Wright’s museum in New York and Frank Gehry’s museum in Bilbao,Spain.An analysis of these
two major works of American architecture provides an introduction to the contemporary
confluence between Hebraic consciousness and postmodern art in a digital age.
In his seminal work,Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek,Norwegian theologian Thorleif Boman
analyzes Hellenistic and Hebraic consciousness and compares them. He emphasizes the
dynamic, vigorous, passionate, and action-centered characteristics of Hebraic consciousness in
contrast to the static, peaceful, moderate, and passive Greek consciousness. Boman notes that
biblical passages concerned with the built environment always describe plans for construction
without any description of the appearance of the finished structure.Noah’s ark is presented as a
detailed building plan. How the ark looked when it set sail is never described.The Bible has
