artiststory: Smartphones Have the Power to Make the Bible Come Alive

24 January 2019

Smartphones Have the Power to Make the Bible Come Alive

"Angels Ascending from the Land of Israel" in collection of Israel Museum, Jerusalem

“He had a vision in a dream. A ladder was standing on the ground, its top reaching up towards heaven as Divine angels were going up and down on it.” (Genesis 28:12)

This biblical passage about Jacob’s dream inspired artist Mel Alexenberg to create the serigraph “Angels Ascending from the Land of Israel” that is in the collection of the Israel Museum. He created this artwork at the museum’s affiliated graphics center in Jerusalem.

It shows digitized Rembrandt angels ascending from a NASA satellite image of Israel based upon the biblical commentary that the angels in Jacob’s dream go up from the Land of Israel and go down throughout the world. This serigraph morphed into the cover of his book Through a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media with the angels emerging from the satellite image of Israel displayed on a smartphone screen.

Smartphones have the power to make the biblical account of Jacob’s dream become a digital age reality by uploading cyberangels in Israel into "The Cloud" (network of all networks) and inviting people everywhere to download them.

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Rethinking Creativity and Spirituality in a Postdigital Age

About the Artist

Mel Alexenberg is an artist, educator, writer, and blogger working at the interface between art, science, technology, culture, and Jewish thought and experience. His artworks explore interrelationships between the networked world and spirituality, postdigital art and Jewish consciousness, space-time systems and electronic technologies, and participatory art and community values. His artworks are in the collections of more than forty museums worldwide.

Alexenberg was professor of art and education at Columbia University, head of the art department at Pratt Institute, dean at New World School of the Arts in Miami, and research fellow at MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies. In Israel, he is professor emeritus of art and Jewish thought at Ariel University, head of Emunah College School of the Arts, and former professor at Bar-Ilan University and Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.

Born and educated in New York, Alexenberg earned degrees at Queens College, Yeshiva University, and New York University. He lives with his wife, artist Miriam Benjamin, in
Ra'anana, Israel.

The Soul of a Creator

Whoever is endowed with the soul of a creator must create works of imagination and thought, for the flame of the soul rises by itself and one cannot impede it on its course.... The creative individual brings vital, new light from a higher source where originality emanates to the place where it has not previously been manifest, from the place that "no bird of prey knows, nor has the falcon's eye seen" (Job 28:7), "that no man has passed, nor has any person dwelt" (Jeremiah 2:6). From Lights of Holiness by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook

Mel Alexenberg's Recent Books

Through a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media (HarperCollins, 2019)

Photograph God: Creating a Spiritual Blog of Your Life (CreateSpace, 2015)

The Future of Art in a Postdigital Age: From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness (Intellect Books/University of Chicago Press, 2011)

Educating Artists for the Future: Learning at the Intersections of Art, Science, Technology, and Culture (Intellect Books/ University of Chicago Press, 2008)

Dialogic Art in a Digital World: Judaism and Contemporary Art (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass House, 2008) in Hebrew

The Future of Art in a Digital Age (Intellect Books, 2006)