GLITCH

Glitch

Brothers of Light

Curator: Hadas Glazer

Glitch is a technical problem or malfunction in a computer program. It is also a genre of experimental electronic music and visual art, characterized by images, video footage, and sounds that are the random byproducts of failures in the operation of electronic and digital devices. From skipping CDs, to distorted and jumbled images, to software bugs and system crashes that become complete artworks.

In Glitch, the artist duo and siblings Brothers of Light, Gab (1991) and Elna (1987), delve into the dysfunctional and incongruous encounter that occurred after October 7^th, between the painful reality of war and mind-altering substances and psychedelic experiences they had. The faulty meeting of war and psychedelia opened up layers of parallel realities and surreal realms, providing them an escape, catharsis, and relief. In the exhibition, these experiences receive visual expression in murals and two series of works on canvas: Containers and Glitch.

However, the works do not portray political events or warfare. They combine the Brothers’ symbolic language with the artistic rendering of glitches generated by AI software, in meticulous painting techniques that demonstrate a deep understanding of color and play with the tension between contours and formal overlaps, mass and lightness, lines and fields of color. The colorful and playful energy of the paintings inspires a sense of overwhelming vitality throughout the gallery space, as though wishing to offer an alternative to the painful feelings of the present moment.

The Containers series, which consists of paintings of vases and cacti, is a response to two contrasting events: a shamanic ritual with psychoactive substances and the shock of the war that immediately followed. The juxtaposition of the two events created an impossible situation of dealing with spiritual transcendence while also experiencing intense and paralyzing pain. The siblings created the images of containers as a symbolic idea that offers an outlet for the inner feeling of turmoil. The containers are based on interactions between abstract shapes, gradients, and color combinations that flow into one another. This allows interplay and imagined transitions between different levels of reality. Alternatively, these works can be seen as an invitation to explore the conflicting inner realities that dwell in the human psyche side by side.

The second series, Glitch, comprises seemingly abstract paintings, which in fact turn out to be realistic paintings, blurring the line between objective reality and subjective experience. The images were created by panoramic photography of the brothers’ previous works. Gab and Elna’s use of AI software produces deliberate glitches and distortions, which are then magnified and become the subject of the painting, offering the glitch as a means for expanding reality and traveling to an alternate realm.

Glitch invites the viewer to step into the siblings’ surreal world, experience the fluid boundaries of reality, and contemplate the existence of parallel realities. Each work serves as a portal to an alternative event and a channel for reflecting on the subconscious and the nature of existence. “Expand Life,” asks one of the works, like a mantra reminding us that there are spaces and landscapes to which we can expand. In that sense, Glitch is a call to go embark on a mesmerizing journey into the surreal and the subconscious.

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