This exhibition deals with discrepancies between sensory input and the deciphering of reality. It is a collaboration between artist Ayelet Carmi and Dr. Ayelet McKyton, a neuroscientist whose research explores the limitations of re-learning to see after experiencing blindness. Her initial study, which was conducted in Ethiopia in collaboration with Prof. Ehud Zohary’s laboratory, measured and monitored children’s sight following cataract surgery. Dr. McKyton’s current research project is under the auspices of Dr. Netta Levin’s laboratory at Hadassah. She studies adults with a congenital sight-loss condition who have undergone innovative treatments to fix retinal dysfunction.
Dr. McKyton has discovered a critical period during development that our brains are capable of learning a particular way of interpreting sensory input. Once this window of opportunity closes, it is difficult, if not impossible, to learn this skill.
Similar themes emerge from Ayelet Carmi’s artwork; her drawings are a glimpse into the ambivalence that ensues when proper visual input is not, or cannot, be interpreted clearly. Using translucent parchment paper as her base, she draws layer after layer of imagery. Shapes emerge as three-dimensional representations, multiplicities of reality, in which elements and facts are repeatedly broken down and reassembled. The artist abandons tangible reality in favor of an alternative, imagined version. Taking this liberty, she enables the viewer to ponder reality while creating the world anew. Through Carmi’s artwork, the viewer actively sees and thinks about the world in a new light, as its physical reality lays before their very eyes.
This scientific-artistic conversation begins with a physical event within subjects’ brains, continues with a researcher deciphering her findings, and includes an artist’s re-interpretation, until, finally, the gallery visitor joins in as an active participant.
