ETA: Rerouted

Main Gallery
February 7–May 18, 2025

Installation view of ETA: Rerouted at Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. Photo by Rachel Alban.

ETA: Rerouted is an exhibition of works by Mollye Bendell, JLS Gangwisch, and Christopher Kojzar, members of the Baltimore-based collective strikeWare who utilize multimedia to comment on the line between human and user experience. The exhibition explores abstract place and spatial relations, querying the concept of the journey versus the destination and all that one might encounter between the two. Bendell, Gangwisch, and Kojzar explore those “in-beween” spaces, both physically and digitally.

ETA is the popular acronym for “estimated time of arrival,” which is calculated based on the speed by which a vehicle has traveled over a specific distance. ETA can also describe, metaphorically, the time required to complete computational tasks like downloading or buffering. This metaphor plays out in the artists’ use of computer processing and virtual reality in their practices as well as in a wide array of transit-related happenings in Maryland, where the first iteration of this exhibition took place. The exhibition embodies the spirit of the universal experiences of movement, traveling, and rerouting. Like Rockville, Summit has a profile similar to that of a suburban town, located a stone’s throw away from a major city and understood by many as a place to pass through. Bendell, Gangwisch, and Kojzar, who live in different parts of the United States, add a compelling dimension to their exploration of transitory dwelling and the ways in which a collective continues to stay together despite its members being many miles apart. With place at the forefront of the artists’ inspiration, the works in the exhibition comment on liminality, the spaces through which people move, the politics of public space, and the varying state of transportation.

Bendell, Gangwisch, and Kojzar connect the physical to the virtual world through their use of mixed media, electronic technologies such as virtual reality and 3D rendering, and analog techniques and materials. While their practices use computational and digital material, each artist is indebted to traditional modes of art, as seen in their prints, drawings, and sculptures. Notes on the constant acceleration of technology are included in the exhibition’s various analog materials like cassette tapes, overhead projectors, and early models of televisions.

ETA: Rerouted invites viewers to consider shared space and all that occurs within it.