Researcher, algorithm developer, and lecturer.

Studied humanities at Hebrew University and attained a Neuroscience Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University. Studies visual perception and information processing, in particular temporal and spatial aspects of attention orientation and eye movements.

Engages in data-based installations, and social activistm.

Ory Bartal is the former head of the Department of Visual and Material Culture in Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem. Since 2024 Bartal is the head of the Master's degree program in Industrial Design at Bezalel.
Bartal is a Japanologist focusing on contemporary Japanese design including industrial and fashion design as well as manga and visual communication. Bartal completed his M.B.A. in the Department of International Business Administration at the Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo in a joint project with the Carnegie Mellon University in the USA He then studied advanced studies toward M.Des. in the Industrial Design department at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. He completed his Ph.D. at the School of Cultural Studies at the University of Tel Aviv, specializing in contemporary visual culture. His book “Postmodern Advertising in Japan: Seduction, Persuasion and the Tokyo Art Directors Club” was published in 2015. The book deals with Japanese advertising, the connection between aesthetics and contemporary consumer culture and the blur boundaries between branding and art. His second book “Critical Design in Japan: Material Culture, Luxury and the Avant-Garde” published in 2020. This book presents the post-war designers that made decisions and created artifacts that radically altered and reshaped the course of Japanese design history. The book shows how their avant-garde design involves an encounter between postmodern aesthetics, critical theory, and new economic rules operating as a critical sociopolitical agent.

UPNE - Postmodern Advertising in Japan: Ory Bartal

Ofri Cnaani is an artist and researcher who works across media and performance. Cnaani writes about data and coloniality, digital contested heritage, institutional practices in the algorithmic turn, and performance as a model to create critical technology. She is a visiting professor at the Institute of Visual Culture, TU Wien, Austria and a research fellow at the International Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) at the University of Amsterdam. Until recently Cnaani was an associate lecturer at the Visual Cultures Department, Goldsmiths, University of London. Cnaani’s work has appeared at Tate Britain, UK; Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC; Inhotim Institute, Brazil; Israel Museum; Amos Rex Museum, Helsinki; Kiasma Museum, Helsinki; PS1/MoMA, NYC; BMW Guggenheim Lab, NYC; The Fisher Museum of Art, L.A.; Twister, Network of Lombardy Contemporary Art Museums, Italy; Herzliya Museum of Art, Israel; Moscow Biennial; The Kitchen, NYC; Bronx Museum of the Arts, NYC; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; Arnolfini Foundation Museum, Bristol; Tel Aviv Museum; Prague Triennial, among others. Prior to her move to London, Cnaani was based in New York City, where she was a faculty at the School of Visual Arts’s Visual and Critical Studies. At SVA she also ran the "City as Site" program. Cnaani recently co-organized Choreographic Devices, a three-day chorographic symposium at ICA, London and is currently working on a project at the International Space Station (ISS).

Graphic designer, creator and head of Bezalel’s undergraduate Department of Visual Communication. Specializes in complex systems design, typography, book design, and branding for public, cultural, arts, and architectural institutions. Founding partner of Studio Gimmel 2, which has been operating in the local and international design field for over a decade and a half. Recipient of several awards, including the DAM Best Architectural Book Award, Tokyo TDC, and the Ministry of Culture Design Prize. Holds a B.Des. in Visual Communication from Bezalel and is pursuing a Master’s degree in the Program in Gender Studies at Bar Ilan University.

(b. 1985)

graduated from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, in 2014. Two years later, he received a Master of Design in Type and Media from The Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. Specialising in the field of multilingual type design and typography, Daniel joined independent Tel Aviv-based foundry Fontef in 2017.

Since 2018, Daniel has been teaching Typography and Lettering at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem. Among his typefaces is “Abraham אברהם إبراهيم”, released in 2017.

Ariel Handel is an interdisciplinary researcher. Teaches political theory and urbanism at Bezalel, Ben Gurion University and Tel Aviv University. He is the director of the Lexicon for Political Theory project and co-editor of Mafteakh-Muftah: Lexical Review of Political Thought. Ariel has published numerous journal papers and book chapters on issues of space, politics, power and violence. He is the editor-in-chief of The Political Lexicon of the Social Protest (Hakibutz Hameuchad, 2012), and co-editor of Normalizing Occupation: The Politics of Everyday Life in the West Bank Settlements (Indiana University Press, 2017).

Abraham Kritzman (born 1983) is an artist living and working in Tel Aviv and London. He is Currently a Lecturer at Bezalel Academy Jerusalem. He is also a member and curator of Barbur Gallery Jerusalem. Abraham has an M.A. from the Painting Programme at the Royal College of Art (2014). A BFA with honours from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem (2011) Selected solo and duo shows: Sally’s Fault Amsterdam, Artists’ House Jerusalem, Danielle Arnaud Gallery London, Hezi Cohen Gallery Tel Aviv, Kav 16 Gallery Tel Aviv, News of the World Gallery London, Atelier 35 Bucharest, Elizabeth Xi Bauer, London, The Artists House Tel Aviv, and Kayma Gallery Jaffa. Selected group exhibitions include: Bradwolff Amsterdam, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv Museum of art, SMAC South Africa, Ashdod Art Museum, The Negev Museum of Art Beer Sheva, Barbur Gallery, Benjamin Gallery, Elizabeth XI Bauer London, Blyth Gallery London, Arebyte Gallery London, Alfred Gallery, Bar David Museum Bar Am, Hanina Gallery Tel Aviv, Graduate Prize Show London, The Artist Studios Talpyot, The Artists House Tel Aviv, Idris Tel Aviv, Artspace Tel Aviv and Beit Binyanini Tel Aviv. Prizes and awards include: Commendation Award, Bezalel Academy, Rappaport Prize 2021- purchasing fund for the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, The Ministry Of Culture Award For Young Artist; Clore – Bezalel Scholarship for MA at the Royal College Of Art London; the Villiers David Travel Award from the Royal College of Art, Excellence Award for Achievements from Bezalel dep. of Fine Art; Milgat Leejay Levene Art Scholarship; the History and Theory Excellence Award from Bezalel; the Aileen Cooper Prize; The Herman Struk Prize for printmaking. Residencies: Sally’s Fault, ODD Bucharest, Arebyte London, Kav 16 gallery Tel Aviv.

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Dr. Liat Lavi, head of the Master's Program in Visual Communication (M.Des.) and lecturer in the Department of Visual and Material Culture, is a researcher and writer in the fields of culture, philosophy and technology. Her articles have been published in professional journals, reference books, and catalogs, and have been presented at international conferences. In addition to other topics, Dr. Lavi’s research deals with the impact growing technologies have on human perception, and the ethical issues these technologies raise; as reflected, for example, in the developing discourse surrounding "robot rights", with respect to issues of gender, resource distribution, and visual culture.

Dr. Lavi is an attorney, with a degree in law and economics from Tel Aviv University, a bachelor's degree in art from Bezalel, and both a master's degree and a doctorate from the Program for Hermeneutics & Cultural Studies at Bar-Ilan University. She has lectured in the philosophy department at Bar-Ilan University and served as the CEO of the Shpilman Institute of Photography (a public benefit company).

Dr. Naomi Meiri-Dann
Art historian and Visual Culture researcher.
Her realms of specialization range from Medieval Art (mainly Italian); Architecture of memory and commemoration (mainly in Israel); Interrelations between religious art and secular culture` and issues concerning encounters between “high” and popular cultures.

Naomi teaches at the Departments of Visual and Material Culture (including the B.A. program), as well as the Master in Policy and Theory of the Arts and the M.Des. Program in Visual Communication.
 

Dr. Shaul Setter, head of the Master's Program in Policy and Theory of the Arts (M.A.), is a lecturer and writer in the fields of art, literature, and theory. He holds a master's degree from Tel Aviv University and a doctorate in comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley. He deals with the relationship between aesthetics and politics, literature and art of the 20th and 21st centuries, political thought, continental philosophy, and critical theory. His doctoral thesis discusses neo-modernist art projects ranging from Europe to Israel/Palestine. His book on Jean-Luc Godard, Jean Genet, and the Palestinian struggle in the 1970s was published in 2021. His articles have been published in academic journals, reference books, and catalogs. For several years, he was the art critic for Haaretz. Since 2019, he has edited “Theory and Criticism”, a journal for theoretical thought and critical review, which is published in Hebrew twice a year by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.