The short film Studio Visit with Mushon Zer-Aviv is available to watch at the top of the page.
Mushon Zer-Aviv, a multidisciplinary designer, media artist, and activist, ingeniously blends visual arts, technology, and social engagement to challenge and investigate politics, discrimination, racism, and war. Known for his versatile roles as a digital creator, writer, and a senior lecturer at Shenkar College of Engineering, Design, and Art, Zer-Aviv perpetually pushes the boundaries of convention.
He is the co-founder of Shual, an Israeli innovative design studio. His creative prowess is also evident in the design of the maps for the widely used navigation app, Waze. Zer-Aviv’s activist spirit and keen interest in social causes are reflected in YouAreNotHere.org, an initiative that offers a digital tour of Gaza for those traversing the streets of Tel Aviv. His dedication to civic engagement is further underlined by his involvement in the Public Knowledge Workshop.
Among Zer-Aviv’s compelling works is The Normalizing Machine, a captivating piece that explores the perception of social normalcy. This interactive installation leverages machine learning as an experimental tool to investigate our collective understanding of ‘normal.’ It prompts participants to identify the most ‘normal’ individual from a lineup, using these choices to refine its algorithmic representation of ‘normalcy continuously.
The historical underpinnings of this work are deeply connected to two influential figures – Alphonse Bertillon and Alan Turing. Bertillon, a French forensics pioneer of the late 19th century, created “Le Portrait Parle,” a system for standardizing and cataloging human faces. Despite its innocent origins, the system was later exploited by the Eugenics movement and the Nazis. Turing, a British mathematician known for laying the groundwork for computing and artificial intelligence, was a pivotal figure in WWII, deciphering the Nazi Enigma code. Despite his achievements, Turing faced persecution due to his homosexuality, resulting in his chemical castration and subsequent suicide. Turing aspired for AI to overcome the systemic biases that led to his stigmatization, a sentiment echoed in Zer-Aviv’s work.
The Normalizing Machine illuminates these historical narratives while spotlighting the pernicious issue of systemic discrimination, subtly masked by seemingly objective algorithms. It probes the potential dangers of AI and machine learning when they’re imbued with social biases and presents a sobering look at how our definitions of ‘normal’ can inadvertently support discrimination.
In an accompanying video, Zer-Aviv discusses his engagement with the digital world, delving into the challenges posed by the internet as a cooperative mechanism. His proactive efforts to comprehend and educate this space underscore his commitment to using art as a tool for critiquing and enlightening societal mechanisms. Zer-Aviv’s multi-faceted work stands as an illuminating exploration of how technology and art can intersect to provoke critical discourse about social norms and biases.
The featured video Studio Visit with Mushon Zer-Aviv is part of the web series Yotsrim by Shachaf Dekel. Yotsrim includes five seasons and 73 episodes. The series won the Best Documentary award at the NYC Web Fest in 2019.
