Yael Kanarek is a new media artist. Since 1995, She has been developing World of Awe with a growing body of works and collaborations in net art, photography, sculpture, literature, music and dance. Works share the narrative of a traveler the who searches for a lost treasure in a parallel world called Sunset/Sunrise. Through the ancient genre of the travel narrative, World of Awe threads language, memory and technology www.worldofawe.net.

Selected for the Whitney Biennial 2002, Yael was awarded of the Rockefeller 2005 New Media Fellowship to create the third chapter “Object of Desire.” She is a recipient of the Jerome Foundation Media Arts grant, the New York Foundation for the Arts 2001 Fellowship award and the Alternative Museum Digital Commission 2000. She was an artist-in-residence at Harvestworks collaborating on the CD “Bit by Bit, Cell by Cell” released by Innova Recordings in 2005. In 2002 she completed the second chapter “Destruction & Mending” commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In 2003 Yael, in collaboration with dancefilmmaker Evann Siebens, launched “Portal,” an interactive net.dance commissioned by Turbulence.org and was R&D resident at Eyebeam in 2003. Yael is represented by bitforms gallery in New York and Nelly Aman in Tel Aviv.

World of Awe has been written about in the New York Times, Le Monde Interactif, Tema Celeste, Art News, Time Out, Flash Art Italy, Firma, Paper Magazine, The Industry Standard, Wired, The Journal News, LA Times and ArtByte, and participated in festivals and exhibitions in Brazil, Italy, Canada, France, England, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Israel, Korea and the USA.

In October 2002 World of Awe was awarded the CNRS/UNESCO Lewis Carroll Argos prize in France and in June 2003 Ms. Kanarek won the 1st prize in the Netizens International Net Art Competition in Rome, Italy.

In 1999 Yael founded Upgrade!—an international network of gatherings concerning art, technology and community: www.theupgrade.net.