OMTA (founded 2002) represents the artistic collaboration of Israeli born, international multimedia artists Tal & Omer Golan. OMTA has exhibited in the US and abroad including shows at ArtZond Festival of Conceptual & Tendetiuos Art in Russia; The Hive NYC Art Space, and De-construkt Projekts Gallery in New York City; and a permanent display at the Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem. OMTA are associate members of the Leonardo/International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology and are current contributors to university new media arts curriculums in Hong Kong, at the University of West Sydney, Tel Aviv University, and Bezalel Academy. Among other notable collaborations, the artists have worked in cooperation with Google and have completed commissioned work for Art-Link (Google Campus, Tel Aviv) and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
The united duo specialises in the intersection of fine art and technology through highly visual presentations of interactive media. As forerunners in innovative research, OMTA creates artistic displays that encourage viewer participation in order to conduct studies regarding human interaction, digital mediation, and social awareness.
About the Artists
Tal Golan studied at the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague (KABK) before obtaining a B.A. degree in Psychology at the Open University of Israel. She contributes a studied fine art perspective and a scientific awareness of human interaction and communication.
Omer Golan received a B.A. degree in Social Studies and Humanities from the Open University of Israel. His driven curiosity regarding the human state and technological advance fuels his artistic productivity.
Their background is in fine arts, mainly in painting, (2001-2006) and in 2005, while living in Leiden Holland, their work began to focus more and more in the fields of new-media art, net-art, conceptual art, installation art, and interdisciplinary collaborations.
Tal & Omer: “We are not interested in a one sided relationship with the viewers where they remain passive, as viewers that pass by. In this age of information and technology the crowds are no longer passive, they are active participants”.
That is why more often than not, OMTA create artworks that are not limited to physical objects, instead they often depend the presence of the viewer, his curiosity and his willingness to “perform” and play an active part in the situation, even at the cost of his personal space. OMTA are especially interested in provoking socially-aware encounters among visitors. By observing the social encounters between visitors and the installation they wish to reveal the behavior adjusted to the new situation.
Together, Tal and Omer have been influenced by the work of Rembrandt Van Rijn, Pablo Picasso, contemporary artists Mel Alexenberg, Aaron Koblin, and Daniel Rozin. They hope to contribute to memorable and pioneering traditions in fine art by using technology to explore self-perception and aesthetic response. Tal and Omer currently reside in NYC with their beautiful daughter, Zoe Frank.
Tal & Omer enjoy programming multimedia installations with Max/Msp/Jitter, and many other tools that allow them to achieve self expression and open-ended concepts. They are autodidacts with no formal background in computer science, and love the renewed challenges their inspiration and unlimited concepts push them to overcome. While admiring nature as a “stand-alone” state of art, we are nevertheless seeking artistic expression of our humanity, our imagination and achievements as human animals in science and technology”.
