_Bio Gali Blay’s artistic practice finds itself at the intersection of documentary storytelling and speculative design. She researches this in-between world created by images and designs her scenarios within the narrative. The artist uses storytelling in design to tackle complex political structures, and to investigate how their power influence different narratives developing in society.
_Approach Never has the perception of reality been more influenced by images than today. And never has there been a higher risk for viewers to be manipulated. As a researcher, the artist is curious about the fictional elements which are created from broadcasting the news and the influence it has on the society who watches it. When Blay watched the news archive from an Israeli channel from one military operation Israel initiated in Gaza in 2014, she noticed that a narrative of panic and safety had been created. — Her project aims to highlight the complex relationship between fiction and reality which is created by media broadcasters. In her work space, the connection between the displayed scaled models and the video will create a friction between fiction, reality, dystopia and utopia. When the documentary medium meets a physical “performance”, with relation to this specific topic, a constructive dialogue can progress.
_Project In recent years the relationship between contemporary measures for safety and the rise of social and community isolation became stronger than ever. Panicutopia will be a documentary video which uses fiction and animation to explore the origins of the induced state of panic embedded in Israeli society through the artificial sense of security and its corresponding unspoken fears. Collected experiences and stories begin to create a picture where panic and utopia collide into a dystopic image. — To better explain or interact with the fictional feeling of safety created in the Israeli reality, the artist will create a fictional community that has chosen to isolate itself from the rest of society and from governmental infrastructure, defense systems. It is a community emerging as a hybrid collage from the existing cultures within the Israeli state. Its inhabitants created a utopic dream. However, they too, possess the same panic and fear of the “other”.
