Keren Gueller
Keren Gueller
Default Mode Network, 2023, Installation
Kiska is a female killer whale, considered one of nature’s deadliest apex predators. Born off the coast of Iceland in 1976 (the same year as the artist), she was captured when she was two, more than forty years ago, and moved to the MarineLand themed zoo in Niagara Falls, Canada. As a social animal that lives in packs even in the aquarium, Kiska was surrounded by her fellow orcas, including her six calves. About a decade ago she was separated from them and is now held in complete isolation. Kiska’s huge body is confined in a cramped pool, forcing her to adjust her positions to the container. In Keren Gueller’s camera she was captured in a vertical, unnatural position, conjuring a quintessential image of loneliness, the sense of anguish amplified by her own reflection.
Years later, Gueller came across documentation of this helpless orca bashing her head against the walls around her in an act of self-harm. After seeing this footage, the artist started exploring the effect of stress on the brain through an ongoing dialogue with Prof. Yaniv Assaf, who studies the brain’s structure and activity in humans and animals. He gave Gueller a brain of a similar whale, who died of natural causes and was donated to science. Once it was no longer of any use in the lab, Gueller turned it into an object in the exhibition. It is through this dialogue that she started exploring the neural system called Default Mode Network (DMN), which is still shrouded by mystery.
In times of inactivity, when the individual has no clear purpose or tasks, this network, which involves multiple brain areas, comes into action in a coordinated effort. Most notably, it is associated with self-projection, allowing mental simulations where we “project” ourselves
to a different time, place, or perspective than our immediate present. When the DMN is overstimulated, it may lead to mental disorders, like recurring negative ruminations, clinical depression, dysthymia, and anxiety. At the same time, it is also vital to the formulation of visual artworks, developing ideas, and divergent thinking. Next to the image of the captive Kiska, Gueller also filmed the orca from above at dusk, in what looks like the open sea. Unlike the artificial colors of the pool in the vertical underwater photo, here the colors are natural, alluring, depicting the sun as it is reflected from her body. The work creates the impression of nature photography, but this is in fact a painful illusion: This is the same animal, in the same place, at the exact same moment.
Gueller’s photography gives different forms to the one-sided, unreciprocated gaze at animals. The site-specific installation combines multiple viewpoints: internal and external, from above and below, as well as towards celestial bodies. The object she created in collaboration with Dr. Iair Arcavi of the School of Physics and Astronomy merges 320 long exposures taken at an astronomical observatory. All the photos were superimposed on one another to form a single image that reflects the Earth’s rotation. At the center of the circles one can see the North Star, Polaris, which thanks to a coincidence appears to be at the same spot in the sky every night, adding to the illusionistic stability we try to attribute to the universe. On the round balcony that hovers above the entrance hall of TAU Art Gallery, Gueller draws connecting lines between several perspectives, acts of oppression, illusion, and the futile attempt to capture the endless motion of the world and the creatures that inhabit it.
