LASER Talks Jerusalem: The Walling World. The Age of Partition
- mail76643
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
January 25, 2026 at 7 PM (UTC +2) — Find your timezone here.
The President Hotel Art Center, Ahad Ha-Am str. 3, Jerusalem, Israel / online
Participants: Maxim Imanou Fadeev, Olga Remneva, Victor Vakhshtayn
Chaired by Galina Bleikh
Coordinated by Lilia Chak
Moderated by Daria Kesler
Organisers: INEMEA Art & Science Lab, CYLAND MediaArtLab
We live in an age of partition. Physical walls are rising faster than ever in history, digital borders divide information space into sovereign territories, biological boundaries between organisms and technology blur, while social frames structure our everyday interactions. All these types of borders—geopolitical, technological, corporeal, symbolic—are interconnected and mutually constitutive. This Laser Talk explores how artistic and scientific practices help us detect, articulate, and rethink the phenomenon of borderization that defines our present.
Maxim Imanou Fadeev presents his talk “State of Borders: Protect or Imprison.” His project Borderization explores the rapid proliferation of physical, psychological, and digital borders. In 100 years, nation-states tripled—and so did their borders. More walls were built in the last 30 years than in the previous 300. Digital borders now emerge as governments pursue information sovereignty. This unfolds alongside polarized and charged migration discourse: "we are all the same" versus "we are all different". The work combines geolocation data, historical datasets of wall construction, rhetorical tools used to justify borders, and satellite imagery. The result is as ambiguous as borders themselves: structures that protect or imprison.
Olga Remneva explores "The Border Between the So-Called 'Us'." Using three conceptually and stylistically different projects as examples, she speaks about the walls in communication—both interpersonal and interspecies. As technology mediates our interactions, these barriers operate on multiple levels: hearing ourselves in the world of machines, hearing each other via technological media, and hearing the Other when the Other is a robot. The work reveals communication as a contested border zone where understanding and misunderstanding, connection and isolation, coexist in perpetual tension.
Victor Vakhshtayn in his talk "No Borders, No Communication: A Blind Spot in Globalization Theory," turns to the issue of micro- and macro-borders that do not arise in the process of communication but rather make it possible. Drawing on actor–network theory within Science and Technology Studies, he analyzes the role of borders in the evolution of social interaction and the revision to which the very idea of the border has been subjected in the fast-paced era of globalization.
BIOS
Galina Bleikh
Israel A multidisciplinary artist. Her creative expertise spans a rich spectrum of artistic domains, encompassing AI, 3D modeling, AR and VR, bio-art, generative art, and more. At the heart of her artistic pursuit lies a fascination with the profound synergy between the emerging artificial reality and its transformative interaction with human experience through art. Galina graduated from the Stieglitz St. Petersburg State Academy of Art and Industry (MA). Since 1993, lives in Jerusalem. Galina is a cofounder of the INEMEA Association for Art, Culture, and Education and the INEMEA Jerusalem Art & Science lab. Since 2024, Galina becomes a host of Leonardo/ISAST Laser Talks Jerusalem. Galina takes part in many exhibitions and conferences. Among them: The CICA Museum of Modern Art, Republic of Korea (3 group exhibitions: 2025, 2024, 2023, and solo: 2025 and 2021), Jerusalem Biennale (co-curator and participating artist, 2023–2024), ArtPlatform-On, Republic of Korea (2022), NordArt, Germany (2019), Haifa Museum of Art, Israel (2018), LA Art Show USA (2013), etc (+60). bleikh.art
Lilia Chak
PhD, Israel
Lilia Chak (b. 1966, St. Petersburg) is an Israeli artist, designer, and science-art researcher based in Jerusalem. Her interdisciplinary practice spans new media, Bio-art, Dendro-art, AI-generated art, video, photography, and installation. She holds a PhD from the Art & Science Department at Sorbonne University (2022) and is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Bar-Ilan University, researching AI-driven directions in Bio-art. Chak is the author of Contemporary Practices in Bio-art: When a Tree Becomes an Artwork (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023) and introduced the term “Dendro-art” into international discourse. Her work has been shown internationally in venues including Ars Electronica, BOZAR, Shenzhen Art Museum, CICA Museum, Negev Museum of Art, Museo Orto Botanico Rome, and Matsudo International Science Art Festival. She has received multiple awards, including recognitions from WMF PROMPT Magazine, Chung-Ang University’s AIIF, and Project 59 Inc. Chak coordinates Leonardo/ISAST LASER Talks in Jerusalem and teaches “Art, Biology and Ecology” at Shenkar College. chak-art.gala-studio.com
Daria Kesler
Israel
Cross-disciplinary researcher and artist. Works with human and machine-generated texts, sounds, documentaries, scents, and video art. Daria is interested in using modern technologies and science to spread empathy towards all species. She wants to explore new ways of co-living between technology, human, plants, and animals. Education: Master of Art&Science (Inovice), ITMO, Russia, Major studies in Hybrid (Technological and Bio) Art.
Maxim Imanou Fadeev
Israel
Maxim Imanou Fadeev (b. 1987) is a multidisciplinary artist. His practice centers on the post-national—a critical examination of nation-states and the systems that shape how we move, belong, and identify. This includes borders, passports, and migration. Alongside this critical lens, he explores speculative possibilities: utopian models, ideas of unification, and alternative ways humans might organize and cooperate beyond national frameworks. Through his practice, he seeks to provoke reflection and create conditions for a more harmonious and cooperative world. He works across many mediums, including sound, a/v, installation, research-based art, speculative design, performance, and hybrid forms. He holds a Master's degree in Digital Art (with excellence) from Far Eastern Federal University. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Jerusalem Biennale, the National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA), Electromuseum (Moscow), GoEast Festival (Wiesbaden, Germany), and the Primorye State Art Gallery (Vladivostok).
Olga Remneva
PhD, Athens, Greece
Olga Remneva — PhD in cultural studies, art&science and technology-based expert, curator, art historian, art consultant, educator. Associate professor at ITMO University. TEDx speaker, Next Generation Foresight Practitioners fellow and judge. 10 exhibitions curated, 40+ educational programs designed, 500+ hours of lectures and public talks given in 20+ cities and at international online events.
Key previous experience: Founder and curator of VZOR Lab, Head of the ‘Management in the Creative Arts’ Bachelor Program at Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (official academic partner – Manchester University, United Kingdom), Deputy Head of Artistic and Interdisciplinary Programs Department at National Centre for Contemporary Arts (Moscow), Gallery Spaces Coordinator at Ars Electronica (Austria), Art Manager at Moscow Biennial of Contemporary Art, Coordinator of the Parallel Program at Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art.
Victor Vakhshtayn
PhD, Israel
Victor Vakhshtayn graduated from the Department of Psychology at Penza University and earned his MA in Social Sciences at the Russian-British University in Moscow. He received his PhD in social theory from the Higher School of Economics and served as Professor of Sociology and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at «Shaninka» (Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences), where he later became Professor of Sociology and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. He is the author of nine books and 150 scholarly articles and has twice been included in the list of the 100 most-cited Russian-speaking sociologists. In September 2021, following the arrest of colleagues and a raid by the Russian Federal Security Service, Vakhshtayn left Russia. Declared a “foreign agent” by the Russian authorities, he joined the Board of the Teodor Shanin International Foundation and became one of the founders of the first Russian “university in exile” – the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences (FLAS, based in Montenegro), created by former Russian-British University faculty. He is currently a professor and head of the Department of Sociology at FLAS. Since January 2022, Victor Vakhshtayn has been living in Israel, where he serves as a senior research fellow at the Center for Russian Studies, Tel Aviv University.
His books focus on sociological theory, microsociology, frame analysis, urban studies, history of worldviews, and science and technology studies.
