In Between Real and Imaginary Ecosystems

In the winter of 2020, at the beginning of what later unfolded as a long period of major depression, Omer Eilam wrote an entry in his diary which ended with the following sentence: “We are destroying the natural world and gradually migrate into a self-created simulation”. This idea has been following him ever since as he navigated his relationship with nature and technology. In the exhibition In Between Real and Imaginary Ecosystems the Berlin-based Israeli artist explores this relationship through the lens of ecosystems. One room of Zemin Art Space showcases a real ecosystem featuring the electroacoustic composition “A Day at Hambacher Forst”, based on Omer Eilam’s experiences as an activist occupying the Hambach Forest and trying to save it from destruction for the sake of coal mining: “At that time I was a member of Extinction Rebellion and wanted to witness firsthand the collapse of our natural systems as well as the struggle of the environmental movement in order to prevent that from happening. While I expected to find highly motivated activists and “tree hugging hippies” I was totally unprepared to face people whose lives were so utterly different from anything I’ve encountered until then. In retrospect I realized how living in such close proximity to a place of destruction and violent opposition can cause deep scars in the human soul and make a person feel extremely alienated from his fellow men.” Another room features an imaginary ecosystem consisting of invisible choirs, metallic birds, a stuttering wind and other “sound organisms”. The composer invites visitors to interact with these sound beings by shaping their behavior and revealing their endless beautiful forms. A bridge between the two ecosystems will be created by combining images taken from Hambach with AI-generated pictures depicting imaginary landscapes and beings, in a way that resembles both the topography of a forest as well as the topography of our imagination.