LoVid, Memory Weave, 2006, Iris print, 44" X 60"

Off the Wall at the Jewish Museum
16 March - 27 March
Various times and venues
The Jewish Museum - 1109 Fifth Avenue New York, NY
$museum admission (12)

Last week the Jewish Museum launched Off the Wall: Artists at Work, a two-week series of open studios and ongoing projects in development by eleven artists invited by the museum to participate. From the press release: "the artists in Off the Wall are part of a new generation that is engaged in alternative Jewish communities but may not be affiliated with synagogues or mainstream organizations. As but one aspect of their multiple identities, Jewishness, when it figures in their art, is playful, performative, and wired for the internet. Their work may be ironic and draw on pop culture or take inspiration from liturgical and spiritual sources."

A week of events remain as part of Off The Wall, which will feature a performance and talk with LoVid (Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus) tomorrow night at 7:30. LoVid has exhibited and preformed internationally, often presenting manifestations of their singular analog poetics across media, implicit in our daily lives but made invisible by the sterility of the rapid cyclical nature of technological development and obsolescence. "For Off the Wall, LoVid will develop Retzuot, an interdisciplinary project inspired by tefillin (leather straps and boxes containing parchment scrolls inscribed with biblical verses) and tallitot (prayer shawls). Retzuot will feature handmade hardware, video-generating sculptural synthesizers, hand-sewn knotted patchworks, and a media performance featuring live abstract video and sound. These interactive and wearable sculptural instruments offer new perspectives on the performative aspects of ritual, the potential for creativity and spirituality in technology, and the relationship between abstract audiovisuals and language-based prayer."