Jerusalem-USA: Jerusalem, Georgia

21 June 2009

Jerusalem, Georgia

Thre are three Jerusalems in Georgia in Camden, Newton, and Pickens counties. Georgia is 6,380 miles from Jerusalem, Israel.

One of the oldest synagogues in USA is in Georgia. The Mikve Israel congregation was founded in 1733 and its present building was consecrated in 1878.

"May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in a promised land, whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of heaven and make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah."
From George Washington's 1790 letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Savannah, Georgia, on being elected the first president of USA.

Mel Alexenberg

As an artist, my conceptual, environmental, and digital artworks have been seen by millions and are represented in the collections of more than forty museums worldwide. As an educator in USA, I am former art professor at Columbia University, head of the art department at Pratt Institute, dean at New World School of the Arts in Miami, and reseach fellow at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies. In Israel, I taught at Bar-Ilan, Ariel and Tel Aviv universities and at Emunah College and Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. As a writer, my most recent books are: 'Through a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media,' 'Photograph God: Creating a Spiritual Blog of Your Life,' 'The Future of Art in a Postdigital Age: From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness,' 'Educating Artists for the Future: Learning at the Intersections of Art, Science, Technology, and Culture' and 'Dialogic Art in a Digital World: Judaism and Contemporary Art' (in Hebrew). I live in Ra'anana, Israel, with my wife artist Miriam Benjamin. website: www.melalexenberg.com

Jerusalem-USA

From Jerusalem in Israel to JerUSAlems in USA

'This city of Jerusalem I have set in the midst of nations, with other countries round about her.' (Ezekiel 5:5)

JerUSAlem-USA is a participatory art project that links the twenty Jerusalems in the United States with the original Jerusalem in Israel. There are Jerusalems in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, and Vermont.

The name of the American Jerusalems was inspired by the Bible where we read about King David establishing Jerusalem as the capital of the unified state of the Israelite nation more than 3,000 years ago. Today, Jerusalem is the vibrant capital of the modern State of Israel.

ON PARTICIPATORY ART

JerUSAlem-USA is a participatory artwork in which the artist invites the people in USA join with him in creating a collaborative work of art. Unlike the solitary role of the visual artist in his studio, the role of the artist in a networked world is shifting to becoming more like the role of playwright/producer/director in theater and film, composer/conductor in music and choreographer in dance.

In her book The Reenchantment of Art, Suzi Gablik proposes, “a new paradigm of participation in which art will begin to redefine itself in terms social relatedness…encouraging the emergence of a more participatory, social interactive framework for art, and supporting the transition from art-for-art’s-sake assumptions of late modernism.”

As the artist of ‘JerUSAlem-USA,” I create the conceptual framework, craft the score/script, and form a team of collaborators who together under my baton bring into being an aesthetic work of participatory art.

The significance of participatory art in our networked world is explored in depth in Mel Alexenberg's books Through a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media (Elm Hill/HarperCollins), and The Future of Art in a Postdigital Age: From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness and Educating Artists for the Future: Learning at the Intersections of Art, Science, Technology and Culture (both published by Intellect Books/University of Chicago Press).