Tzzazit are working at the center as part of Artist in the Community scholarship, with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Sports.
The Tzzazit Ensemble, made up of Eili Levy and Uri Levinson, has been working at the Center for Digital Art for three years now, two of which carried out in the framework of the Community Artist scholarship of the Ministry of Culture.
Work of its kind reflects the desire at the Center for Digital Art to examine long-term work processes and residency structures that extend beyond conventional time frames. It is a stance rooted in the understanding that work processes involving existing communities or catalyzing new communities around them demand longer terms of investment, sometimes for several years, as fundamental conditions for their success.
Extended residencies like these allow for the re-examination of roles like artists, audiences and art institutions, and of concepts like artistic processes and art products, all within new contexts and relationships. In keeping, they offer new roles, such as partners, participants and members, as more relevant reference points in long-term processes.
The Tzzazit Ensemble has worked primarily on a workshop basis. The format prescribes a familiar structure and meeting place with workshop participants for a set time. The aim of most workshops is the creation of "Meizazim" (moving installations). In some cases, the workshop creations are presented in an exhibition that concludes the work period. In effect, two parallel timelines are in play here – the extended residency of the Tzzazit Ensemble at the center and in the Jessy Cohen neighborhood, and the shorter timeframe of each workshop. The organic bond that grows between artists and the community, not through workshops alone, but through neighborly relations built over time, bridges the gap between the two timelines. The Tzzazit Ensemble becomes a household member of the center and a community of participants and users is built around their workshops.
The concept of household members is becoming a key concept in the center's new outlook on its role. If in the past, we built our curatorial program for an abstract community of art lovers, today, in addition to them, we are working with a specific community of people who come into daily and intimate contact with us. What does it mean for an art institution to foster this kind of relationship with a community? How does one produce an art program for this public? These are the key questions that the center is engaged in and which the Tzzazit Ensemble, as household members of the center, play an integral part of.
One of the decisions we arrived at with Tzzazit was that the workshop creations – the participants' "Meizazim" – would not be exhibited in one space with defined opening and closing dates, but could instead be presented in different locations in the center and over time. It marks the beginning of a long-term presentation of the creations from the Tzzazit residency in the center, the display of which will continue to grow throughout the year. It prefaces our basic understanding that an art center does not belong to those who work in it, but is rather a resource for the community that enters through its gates. If we shift our thinking to terms of household members – which is to say, seeing ourselves as part of a larger fabric of local and visiting partners – than our home-base is at the disposal of its members and provides a space for their works over time.
The "Meizazim" on exhibit now comprise the second part of the work Plus Minus. They are a selection from the many workshops held at the center over the last year and a half, in collaboration with other neighborhood organizations, like the community center, treatment centers for parents, children and teen-agers, Hashomer Hatzair, and more. The basic activities in every workshop are designed to transcend the creation of a final product. They entail a learning process led by raising questions and obstacles and encouraging that each participant finds their own solutions. These are the real tools that Tzzazit workshops provide for their participants.
The workshops are open-ended; they are built on layers of questions that are meant to provoke curiosity and provide the tools to seek and find answers independently. The aim of the process is twofold: to gain these capabilities and to build an object in the workshop – the "Meizaz" is the vehicle that propels the process. At the end, when the object is displayed, it has significance both as a symbol of creativity and a quest. These are creations by members of our household that instil dynamism, presence, and dominance in that household. And with it, they declare the entire space as their own space of possibility.
A vital part of the process that the center is undergoing can be found in its desire to reduce the structural gap between artistic processes and the processes that take place in an arts institution. Artistic processes allow for room for error, pondering, testing, experimentation, and non-linear progress. An institution, however, is commonly run with an annual plan or multi-year plan that is inflexible by definition. We are trying to explore the ways in which an art institution can be run as an artistic project, with the flexibility and openness therein.
In parallel to the center's evolution, the extended residency has also affected Tzzazit. It raises questions about the relationships between the ensemble and the center's staff and workshop participants, insofar as working strategies, frameworks, and more. What does it mean to be a household member of an art center?
The Tzzazit Ensemble works at the center, has a key, comes and goes as they please. The long-term residency transforms them into partners in the center's new inquiry and reconfiguration. They provide and gather technical and artistic knowledge and nurture one-on-one social relationships that form the very foundation for what we are trying to build at the center and in the Jessy Cohen neighborhood.
Eyal Danon
Eili Levy and Uri Levinson have been working together as the Tzzazit Ensemble for five years.
Tzzazit produces objects that include works made in workshops by participants. Their work presents a material, formal, and conceptual challenge, whose values vary with each new group and new space.
In this work, they have chosen to present massive tracks crawling across the center's walls that conduct power to the participants' "Meizazim." In turn, the "Meizazim" create a randomized one-of-a-kind choreography that reacts to viewers' movements in the space.
The CDA's archives are operating with the support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund and Artis
