The old Jewish saying "L'Shana Haba'ah b'Yerushalayim," or "Next Year in Jerusalem," is used among the Diaspora to convey a mutual wish to meet soon in the spiritual homeland. Artist Michael Bielicky alters it to "This Year in Jerusalem" for the title of his live video feed of a section of the Western (or Wailing) Wall in Jerusalem at the Robert Guttmann Gallery.

Bielicky's installation is part of the gallery's ongoing series "Jewish Presence in Contemporary Visual Arts" and launches the Year of Jewish Culture, a promising cycle of exhibitions and events throughout 2006 to celebrate the centennial of the Jewish Museum in Prague.

Bielicky (born in 1954) describes the show as a telematic installation, connecting Prague and Jerusalem via 24-hour real-time video stream with sound, though sometimes the audio link isn't functioning, as on the first visit by the reviewer.

Seen without sound, the images are still fascinating. There can be some voyeuristic pleasure in watching Jewish men in prayer, bowing repeatedly to the 18-meter (60-foot) Wailing Wall, the holiest site in Judaism.

One young man skipped across the black-and-white screen to the wall, spread his arms out as in a swan dive and began to swing his arms to and fro. He looked like he was dancing, almost embracing the wall. At one point, a strong wind blew over some white plastic tables and chairs, and men with umbrellas dashed to rearrange them. Coincidentally, outside the gallery in Prague, it was cold, rainy and exceptionally windy.

Women can also be seen praying, but their section is seen only at the lower corner of the projection, and their tight marginalization on the screen effectively reflects their very limited presence at the site, even if this was done unintentionally by the artist.

The curator of the show and director of the gallery, Michaela Hájková, says she discussed the idea for this project for years with Bielicky, and that there were other sections of the wall that they had considered using, including a section underground. When their proposal finally came up before a council in Jerusalem, however, only this section of the wall was accepted.

"This Year in Jerusalem" is more than just a live videocam hookup. Bielicky has also installed a motion-tracking system that works through lamps emitting infrared rays, whose reflections off the bodies of visitors to the gallery are recorded by special cameras. This data is then generated into Lego-like 3-D pixel images in color that are projected over the gallery's live images from the Wailing Wall. So unless you cling to the sides of the room, any movement you make in the gallery is captured and transmitted onto the gallery's large screen.

On a second visit to the exhibition, one week later, the sound was still not functioning. The wall was more crowded. Silent and shown in black and white, it seems an anachronistic picture. But this changes when six teenage boys unfurl an Israeli flag to take a picture of themselves around it. They regroup at the wall, pressed up against it under their flag. These unstaged actions best represent reality — this year in Jerusalem — and the colorful, flickering pixel images of gallery visitors on the screen seem like imposing, high-tech space invaders.

Movement of people, crossing borders, surveillance and the integration of virtual reality with the present are all integral to Bielický's work and life. Head of the new media department at the Academy of Fine Arts (AVU) in Prague, Bielicky was born in Prague, but emigrated with his Czech-Jewish parents to Düsseldorf in 1968, after the Soviet-led invasion. After studying medicine for a couple of years in Germany, he traveled across the United States taking photographs, finally settling in New York City as a photographer. In 1984 he began studies at the prestigious Fine Arts Academy in Düsseldorf, initially studying photography with Bernd Becher, then changing to study video art with Nam June Paik. He moved back to Prague in 1991 to establish the School of New Media at AVU.