The
Unquittable Journey of Uri Dotan
How far
are we from the moment we’ll be able to witness the 3D holograms we see in Star
Trek and other science fiction movies? I hope not too far, not only for the
amazing experience this would be for everyday people: to stand in front of
fantastic robots and imaginary creatures, but also because Uri Dotan will then
be able to take his work to the next level; the perfect fusion between his
reality and our reality.
All he can
do now is give us a strong hint on what can be possible, and take us inside his
intricate world that I can only define of “conceptual abandon”.
At first,
entering an installation by Uri Dotan (like his latest “quit_me”) gives me the
impression of entering a highly artificially constructed space, almost
theatrical. The real experience of the work comes after some time one is inside
it, almost at the point where one is contented with what he saw and is about to
leave. Here is when I realize that the images, the sound, the videos and the
objects around the room have taken over my sense of reality, and I need to exit
the installation space, re-enter the real world, to really experience it. It’s
hard to describe the kind of lyrical experience one feels inside Uri’s space.
Signs are everywhere, bombarding nearly each sense all around you without a
straight forward, palpable connection.
If
architecture is nothing but sculpture that one can enter and inhabit, then Uri
Dotan is virtually - and it’s not by chance I’m using this word - an architect.
Dotan’s grandfather was Leopold Krakauer, one of Israel’s most prominent
architects, and as Michael Sand already stated, “architectural thinking is also
ingrained in Dotan’s image thinking”.
In
“quit_me” Dotan questions our notion of memorial monument by starting his
creative process from a project his grandfather drafted for the tomb of the
Rothschilds family and never built. His “memorial” then immediately becomes a
tribute to his grandfather, whose concentric project drawings are reworked in a
virtual space to become the starting point of an installation that envelops us,
requesting attention from each of our sense. An essential part of the
installation is the soundtrack by Veronica -last name- who also included key
lines from their e-mail collaboration prior to the installation. A cactus
stands in front a blue TV screen: gradually, as the shows progresses, the
cactus bends its head towards the screen, the only light source in that corner
of the gallery. As the spectator is forced to enter Dotan’s space without
second thoughts, the cactus tries to enter the TV screen.
The main
space has a huge computer projection of the new virtual memorial against a wall
weevilled of car speakers, all around large size digital prints dealing with
the monument and other concerns of Dotan artistic history, and more computer
and TV screens, showing lyrical virtual environments, and more voices
whispering incomprehensible thoughts. Some of these clips can also be seen in
Dotan’s website, www.double-vision.org.
Even if
Dotan is possibly the contemporary artist most technically prepared in his use
of digital technology, his approach is quite traditional; in an interview with
Michael Sand he confessed that he begins his projects drawing with pencil on
paper: “And
then I go into the machine, and if I have an image that I like, I build it in
three dimensions. Parallel to that, I build a three-dimensional rendering of
the space. Then I go and position everything: I create the skeleton, and the
skin on the skeleton. I introduce light, create some interaction between the
light and the skin, the light and the environment, and the environment and the
object. This process describes my concept of the artist living an amphibious
existence. Because at that stage, I'm losing my sense of the physical. The only
thing that is left is the eye - and the brain. The eye, the brain, and the
translucence that keeps coming back into my brain from the computer, and all of
the information that I keep feeding it.”
This “losing sense of the physical” is fundamental in the understanding
of Dotan’s work, and this is when the first idea of theatricality that his work
can suggest is in reality his reality. And this is when holograms come
into place: if the technology was available for Uri to take you inside his
virtual space, his brain, he would with the same skilfulness and detail with
which he builds these environments.
Uri Dotan
is essentially a poet who decided to take the difficult path of virtual reality
to communicate his visionary imagery to you. He could have chosen painting or any other traditional medium,
but his bet is that digital technology in the long run will be the only
possible channel for a “total communication”. For now, being able to be
enveloped in his creative process is already an amazing achievement.
© Stefano
Pasquini, 2001
Originally
published in New
York Arts, 2001.