Artist: Mel Alexenberg

After reviewing several artists, which displayed works of movement to the future, expansion, and innovation, Mel Alexenberg becomes a refreshing perspective on the new and evolving art world. An artist, educator, writer, and blogger, Alexenberg focuses his work on interfacing between art, science, technology, and culture. He explores interrelationships between “digital age art and Jewish consciousness, space-time systems, electronic technologies, participatory art and community values, high tech and high touch experiences, and responsive art in cyberspace and real space.” Aiming to bridge gaps, the artist works with the idea of community, attempting to bring together individuals into the whole existence by creating group participation activities, culturally relevant art, and even spiritually interactive and aware art. Reviewing through his work, I found it most refreshing to review the work of the artist which attempted to combine religious tones with the digital art age.
Alexenberg has been able to create, with the help of computer programmer Yisroel Cohen, a dialogic artwork, or Torah Spectorograph, which allows people to see the patterns of the Torah as “related to their own lives”. In this program, the artist has created correlations between color/color patterns and the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. By paring these colors with letter, Alexenberg has been able to “write” out passages of the Torah via stain glass, paint, etc. for others to view and enjoy. His website explains the associations between the colors and letters, placing the first letter of the alphabet, a letter known for being the “all inclusive one” as a single pixel of white light. The second, he adds, is two pixels of red light and is followed by the third letter’s three pixels of orange. Skipping through the letters to help identify the pattern, the eighth letter, het, is represented by eight violet pixels. This spectrum of color is then repeated, while increasing its ban of pixel length with each letter, until the final letter, tav, is seen represented by 22 pixels of violet. An example of his work is a Hoopa , or wedding canopy, he created in the courtyard of a Miami synagogue, writing out Psalm 146 “from generation to generation” in bands of stained glass. Light then passes through the panes of glass and onto those standing underneath, in this case the couple to be wed, symbolizing the transitioning of life from one generation to the next. The work has also been created by painting wooden blocks with the “words” of the creation story from Genesis, which lies in the desert in the Negev Mountains.
This artist is known for wanting to create connections between individuals. The work that he has produced both creates a connection between the present generation, the past, and the future by applying well-known Torah verses to “projecting” surfaces. Not only is this connection made between the individuals of this plane, but also of the human and heavenly connection. It is made obvious by Alexenberg that the materials with which he works are based around religious connections or beliefs. This piece and the idea behind it represents the connections and similarities seen throughout generations, represented by the words it attempts to depict and reinforced by the repetition of the common spectrum and its pixel length, always keeping a consistent base color while just expanding in its length, meaning, and time.
This piece is very successful in creating connections between the Jewish community and the word of the Torah. By creating visual representations of the Torah, individuals are able to find the patterns in the old scriptures that make up the beliefs onto which they cling. I have yet to see visual representations in such abstract ways of “western” religions. Looking at the traditional work of Islamic communities, it is forbidden to have visual representations of holy individuals or of the human figure what so ever. Seeing an interpretation of the Torah in the most simplistic of artistic tools removes the specified religion and allows for personal experience and interpretation. If I were to improve on one thing about this project of the artist, I would have to see if the artist could create works and patterns to represent Arabic for the Qur’an and the letters of the New Testament in order to identify patterns for other religions, seeing if there are any patterns within the three texts. There has always been major conflict between these three religions. To represent these texts side by side, without labels and without identification for the individual to cling to, Alexenberg may be able to create a piece that not only allows the individual to experience the spiritual, but forces them to relate to and experience the spiritual connections between the religions.