
Gagosian is pleased to present Alex Israel’s seven-channel interactive AI-powered video installation REMEMBR (2023), opening at the Davies Street gallery in London on June 6, 2024.
Ever wondered what your life might look like flashing before your eyes? And if you shared this montage as a selection of images from your camera roll—publicly and without control over what exactly would be featured—might the experience make you feel vulnerable in a whole new way? Would it feel like performing karaoke, but in pictures instead of songs? Would you feel like the star of your own movie, or like an influencer posting an #ad? Like a gambler never knowing what card will be drawn next, or maybe even like an artist, exposing your self-portrait to the court of popular opinion?
_I have over 100,000 photos and videos on my iPhone. The pocket-sized smart device reports on the weather and tracks my steps, but it’s also become an external hard drive for my brain—allowing me to create and store an ever-expanding abundance of content. I wanted to find an engaging (and maybe even exciting) way to enter the cloud and scroll through these mementos, but without literally having to scroll through them. The Apple Photos app sends me short edited clips culled from this database that, on occasion, remind, surprise, and move me. My goal in building _REMEMBR was to create similarly poignant memories for myself and for others, but at a scale and with a degree of drama that ups the emotional stakes for everyone. Could it cover a lot more ground? Could it become exhilarating?”
_Each two-minute super-memory created by _REMEMBR_is made possible with the aid of artificial intelligence. _REMEMBR_selects and combines multiple categories of each user’s content, edits and synchronises it all to an infectious pop beat, weaves it together with colourful animation, and choreographs its presentation across seven large screens shaped after my _Self-Portrait works.
—Alex Israel
Press release courtesy Gagosian
Based in Los Angeles, Alex Israel engages with the particular culture of the local film and media industries. Mining the ‘food chain’ of show business, he interrogates and confounds the fine line between ‘talent’ and ‘raw material’ while reframing and re-presenting manufactured items whose formal and auratic properties are often overlooked. For Israel, the American Dream, as embodied by the Los Angeles mythos, remains affecting and potent. Channelling celebrity culture as well as the slick appearance and aspirations of the entertainment capital, Israel approaches his hometown with an uncanny coupling of local familiarity and anthropological curiosity. His work alludes to both California cool and calculated brand creation, embracing clichés and styles that exude the hygienic optimism endemic to the local scene.





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