Mel Alexenberg is an artist, educator, writer and blogger working at the interface between art, science, technology and culture. His artworks explore interrelationships between postdigital age art and Jewish consciousness, space-time systems and electronic technologies, participatory art and community values, high tech and high touch experiences, and responsive art in cyberspace and real space. His artworks are in the collections of more than forty museums worldwide from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to the Jewish Museum of Prague to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
Alexenberg is head of the Emuna College School of the Arts in Jerusalem and professor emeritus at Ariel University Center. He was professor of art and education at Columbia University and Bar Ilan University, head of the art department at Pratt Institute, dean of visual arts at New World School of the Arts in Miami, and research fellow at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies.
He is the author of the books: The Future of Art in a Postdigital Age: From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness and Educating Artists for the Future: Learning at the Intersections of Art, Science, Technology, and Culture (both published by Intellect Books/University of Chicago Press), Dialogic Art in a Digital World: Four Essays on Judaism and Contemporary Art (in Hebrew), Aesthetic Experience in Creative Process (Bar Ilan University Press), and with Otto Piene, LightsOROT: Spiritual Dimensions of the Electronic Age (MIT and Yeshiva University Museum), and has contributed chapters to the books: Inter/sections/Inter/actions: Art Education in a Digital Visual Culture, Interdisciplinary Art Education: Building Bridges to Connect Disciplines and Cultures, Semiotics of Visual Culture: Sights, Signs, and Significance, and Community Connections: Intergenerational Links in Art Education.
Born and educated in New York, Alexenberg earned degrees at Queens College, Yeshiva University, and New York University (interdisciplinary doctorate in art, science, education and psychology). He lives with his wife, artist Miriam Benjamin, in Petah Tikva, Israel.
