Yael Kanarek

Yael Kanarek
Yael Kanarek, Hello, 2001


HELLO

Yael Kanarek has been creating and exploring a sweetly tormented online world for a decade now. During one development phase of The World of Awe she found herself with a slice of interactive life which did not quite fit her world's profile. I know from experience that not every slice of media cascading off the creative process deserves preservation, but something about Yael's experiment compelled her to keep the file on hand and I'm glad she did. When I asked her for any stray Hyper-Runts from her creative process, she immediately sent me to this odd little interactive experience.

Essentially a user clicks on two invisible presences, releasing an echoey "hello" across a desertlike expanse. It's a simple effect, but once a user engages the interactive system it becomes oddly compelling. Somewhere between the user, the landscape and two virtual beings, a fifth presence seems to emerge.

I like a good sense of awe once in awhile. I'd put it in my morning coffee if I could. Yael has sprinkled a bit of it in this quirky little piece and the result is uncanny.

--Ebon Fisher


'Hello' was an experiment in creating a sense of depth and distance in a static image by the use of voice and simple interactivity.

"'Hello' by Yael Kanarek derives strength from its simplicity. Requiring minimal user input, Hello transforms the computer screen into an object for contemplation rather than a tool for interaction. Hello consists of one static image: a sci-fi cavernous, landscape in shades of pink that periodically emits an echoing 'hello.' Is this a commentary on the supposed detached isolation of cyberspace? Or is it proof that mouse clicking, complicated code, and hoards of links are not necessarily the only means to art-making online? The open-ended-ness of Hello allows for this kind of rumination and more."
–Brooke Singer, Rhizome Net Art News, August 20, 2002

Bio

Yael Kanarek is a new media artist. She has been developing her interdisciplinary project World of Awe since 1995. At the core of World of Awe is The Journal - an original narrative that uses the ancient genre of the traveler's tale to explore the connections between storytelling, travel, memory and technology.

Selected for the Whitney biennial 2002, Ms. Kanarek is a recipient of the Jerome Foundation Media Arts grant, the New York Foundation for the Arts 2001 fellowship award and the Alternative Museum Digital Commission 2000. She has been an artist-in-residence at Harvestworks collaborating on Music for with composer Yoav Gal. In 2002 she completed Chapter 2 of the Traveler's Journal commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Recently, Ms. Kanarek launched an interactive net.dance in collaboration with dance filmmaker Evann Siebens, commissioned by Turbulence.org and was R&D resident at Eyebeam, collaborating with bnode architecture studio on the mRB project.

She has been published globally including, The NY Times, Le Monde Interactif, Tema Celeste, Art News, Time Out, Flash Art Italy, Paper Magazine, The Industry Standard, Wired, The Journal News and ArtByte, and participated in festivals and exhibitions in Brazil, France, England, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Israel, Korea and the USA. In October 2002 Ms. Kanarek was awarded the CNRS/UNESCO Lewis Carroll Argos prize in France and in June 2003 she won the 1st prize in the Netizens International Net Art competition in Rome, Italy.

http://www.computerfinearts.com/collection/kanarek/hello/index.html
WORLD OF AWE = http://www.worldofawe.net
new media initiatives = http://www.treasurecrumbs.com