Wheels of Fortune

A profile on Miri Segal in “Ten Artists to Watch”ARTnews, March 2002, p. 101

With a Ph.D. in mathematical logic from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Miri Segal is systematically exposing the nuances of perception. A part-time math consultant to high-tech companies in Tel Aviv, the 36-year-old artist has been using a basic video camera to investigate how we see. The results have been striking enough to lead to one solo show at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in Queens, New York, last spring and another at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art next month.

Segal’s video installations incorporate playful tricks, diversions, or deceptions. A dancing woman hugs herself in Closed Circuit, 2000. Images of her shot from the back and the front are projected from opposite sides of the room onto a sheet of glass, so that her two sides overlap, back turning into front, front turning into back. Her arms look as if they encircle her body. In Vapor – The Poetic Principle (1998) eucalyptus trees appear to thrash in the wind as they are projected onto the quickly spinning blades of an industrial fan.

“I am not one of those artists who gathers material or creates via dialogue,” says Segal. A soft-spoken woman with pale skin and light blue eyes, she speaks precisely and deliberately about her work. “I imagine not what the piece would look like but rather what it would do to the viewer.” In Foreshadowing (2001), a spinning roulette wheel is projected onto glass in the air overhead. A number flashes, anticipating the winning digits. At the same time, standing in front of the projector, the viewer’s own image flings shadows up across the wall. Another shadow, thrown by a second projector, joins this one, creating the illusion of someone looking over one’s shoulder. “The viewer has to stretch his neck and look up, in order to find his reflection standing next to a roulette wheel,” Segal has written. She continues, “One who succeeds in foreseeing the future might be persuaded that she has in fact shaped it.” The artist composes technical descriptions of each piece – like the steps of a mathematical proof – discussing how its mechanics are supposed to act on people. “The precision required in the construction of the pieces, which is an important part of their heft, is that of a mathematician,” says Larissa Harris, associate curator at P.S.1. “This precision is required to achieve perfection in the illusion.”

“It interests me to know, for instance, what objects look like without the eye looking directly at them,” says Segal. In other words, the representation of an object can sometimes replace the effect of the thing itself. In her work e.g. (2000), juggling balls bounce in the air, the result of a video projected behind a two-way mirror, which reflects the viewer back to herself. A woman’s figure briefly flashes, suggesting the next step – to reach out your hands and play with the illusion. Similarly, with Vapor, says Harris, “you walk in and see this circular vision of very green trees blowing – and you feel them blowing.”

Born in Haifa, Israel, Segal began to taske classes at taken art classes at the San FranciscoArt Institute in 1998 while finishing her dissertation. In the few years since, in addition to her solo show at P.S.1,she has had anexhibition at her Tel Aviv gallery, Dvir, and has been included in group shows at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Kunstmuseum in Lucerne, and Munich’s Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung. Her work sells for between $8,000 and $25,000.

She is currently in the group exhibition “Thin Skin,” co-curated by Barbara Clausen and Carin Kuoni for Independent Curators International and at New York’s AXA Gallery through the 13th of next month. Recently awarded the prestigious Nathan Gottesdiener Foundation Israeli Art Prize, Segal is now preparing for a show, in conjunction with the prize, at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

And while most of her works incorporate video, Segal does not regard herself as a video artist. Rather she remains an artist who is a scholar of phenomena, from the laws of math to those of perception. “I use video as a tool just because I have two left hands,” she confesses. “At this stage, it is the most suitable vehicle to convey my ideas.”

Translation: Daria Kassovsky