Drexel University’s Leonard Pearlstein Gallery will host a pair of exhibitions that showcase the digital design talents of students, faculty and local artists whose work transforms human experience through digital rendering and explores the effects of technology on humanity. The exhibitions — Digital Twin and Heavy Merge — will be open to the public from Aug. 19 to Oct. 4, 2025, at the Pearlstein Gallery at 3401 Filbert St.
Digital Twin, a group show curated by Micah Lockman-Fine, a graduate student in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, features the work of 10 artists who are all members of the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design community. They include Rghad Balkhyoor, a doctoral student; Lewis Colburn, an associate professor and interim head of the Department of Art & Art History; Ann T. Dinh, a former adjunct instructor; Nicole Feller-Johnson, an adjunct professor; Emil Polyak, PhD, an associate professor of Digital Media; Tin Ta, an undergraduate student; Victoria Wohlforth, an Interior Architecture alumna; Darren Woodland, a doctoral student; and Cooper Wright, an adjunct professor and facility manager.
These artists employ video, speculative design, interactivity, ceramic 3D printing and assemblage. Their pieces explore the creation of digital twins — a digital design tool that creates a virtual translation of live human behavior — asking how these approximated, designed replicas affect humans’ bodies and lives.
“These artists probe digital doubling technologies and imagine paths forward for reclaiming human agency beside our digital twins,” said Lockman-Fine, curator of the exhibition. “Reverent and profane, farcical and severe, unnerving and uplifting, Digital Twin showcases the Westphal community as it wrestles with some of the most pressing creative problems of the digital age.”
Heavy Merge is a multimedia installation by sculptor Carolyn Healy and audio-video artist John Phillips that examines the wonders of consciousness and the human brain. The site-specific installation juxtaposes sculptures and shadows with video feedback projections and sound to approximate the boundless creative activity taking place in the brain. The artist duo has been collaborating on multimedia, site-based installations since 1987, including several at other Philadelphia institutions, such as Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia Live Arts and Fringe Festivals and the Institute of Contemporary Art.
“While art challenges the viewer to think about a subject in a new way, few artworks explore the question of how we think,” said Talia Greene, an adjunct professor in the Department of Art & Art History and the Pearlstein Gallery’s manager of Exhibitions and Engagement. “In Heavy Merge, Healy and Phillips create an immersive experience for viewers, using found objects, sound and video to present a personal exploration of consciousness and the inner workings of the brain.”
These exhibitions were selected from an open call for proposals by the Pearlstein Gallery’s advisory committee: Nick Cassway, Dave Hannon, Jenna Gilley, Heather Moqtaderi, Diana Nicholas, Jess Polk, Klara Proffen, Alexandra Schmidt-Ullrich, Mark Stockton, Denise Wolf and Ricardo Zapata.
The exhibitions are free and will be open to the public at the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery Monday-Friday, noon – 5 p.m. and Saturdays, noon – 3 p.m. from Aug. 19 to Oct. 4, 2025.
An opening reception will be held at the Pearlstein Gallery on Thursday, Aug. 21 from 5-7:30 p.m. And a closing reception will be held on Thursday, Sept. 25 from 5-7:30 p.m. There will also be a panel discussion moderated by Evangelia Chrysikou, PhD, an associate professor of psychology and brain sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences, at the Gallery on Tuesday, Sept. 30, from 5-7 p.m. For more information, visit: https://drexel.edu/pearlsteingallery/.