Future Determinants, 2025-26

Future Determinants is an immersive installation that envisions speculative utopias for Israel and Palestine, realities shaped by unity, peace, and the imaginative lens of Gellis’s childhood. Drawing from the vibrant language of street art, we’re exploring how art in public spaces addresses cultural conflict while proposing utopic narratives. Using virtual reality, prismatic animation, and layered textures of trash and rubble, I reframe discarded materials into visions of possibility. AI-mediated “synthwave” landscapes, Street Art scenes in VR, and subversive Bazooka Gum comic wrappers, this interactive work invites viewers to engage with alternate futures. Conceptual mirroring is a guiding visual theme that reflects both present realities and fantastical aspirations. This work is created from personal experiences living in Israel during the Hamas-Israel conflict, and melds nostalgia, playfulness, and radical hope into a reimagined Israel where art disrupts, rebuilds, and envisions anew.