In Forever, Elsewhere artist Ofri Cnaani provided Brussels art fair's walk-ins with spiritual “readings” in the Internet age. This project expands on the idea of visibility and vulnerability in our image-saturated digital culture and the lack of real-life presentness in the social network era. In it, the structure of the “readings,” inspired by fortune-tellers and tarot cards, is manifested in original artist designed double-sided deck. In lieu of the artist's physical presence, a Brussels-based mentalist will offer an individual readings, serving as medium or a proxy, between artist and visitor. The reader, or a present-teller, will offer a soul reading on the crossroad between the age-old occult and the omniscient digital world. The cards include statements such as: “you are having a real moment”, “manage your online presentness", and “alone, together” among others, highlighting fundamental paradoxes of personhood in the media era.
Like in the historical nomadic fairs, where one can always find a fortune teller, Cnaani’s ‘present teller’ seated in the art fair’s booth will be giving the visitor, often looking at art objects, the gift of being looked at, seen and see-through. Today, we can find online data on pretty much everything, while we became completely searchable ourselves. The future, nevertheless, present the only territory still occupied by the ultimate unknown. But more than looking at the future, Cnaani’s cards offering us a reading into the present moment. “As we distribute ourselves, we may abandon ourselves.” writes media theorist Sherry Turkle. Analysing our present behaviors, she points out how we, as users, moved from conversation to connections, while abounding the ability to be present as well as the capacity to be alone: “networked, we are together, but so lessened are our expectations of each other that we can feel utterly alone”. If we are shaped by our own tools, Forever Elsewhere calls attention to what we can expect to find in our present reading when we constantly live in a ‘fast form’ internet living.