Art and technology before internet featured in new exhibition

The Manila Times

Art and technology before internet featured in new exhibition  London’s Tate Modern is set to open ‘Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before The Internet' -- an exhibition exploring the intersection between art and technology between the 1950s and the early 1990s. Catherine Wood, who is the art galleries' Director of Programme said that while it’s common place for young artists today to use digital tools to create their work, Tate Modern wanted to celebrate the trailblazers in this field. Featuring work from over 70 international artists, pieces include impressive installations using light and movement and images generated by computers.  REUTERS VIDEO  Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe    Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net    Follow us:  Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook  Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram  Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter  DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion    Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital    Check out our Podcasts:  Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify  Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts  Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic  Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer  Tune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein   #TheManilaTimes #tmtnews #london #tatemodern

Transcript

00:30Loads of young artists are using the tools of digital media to make their work, but what

00:39we wanted to do as a museum is to tell the back story of that tendency and to really

00:45look at the pioneers who before they had the incredible capacity of contemporary computing

00:51were imagining the look of the world we inhabit now.

01:21And we wanted to look at why those artists wanted to immerse viewers, their democratic

01:31impulses, their idea that there'd be a new future after the upheavals of the Second World

01:38War. So they were trying to make new art with new tools and really think about the human

01:45subject in a radical new way that was sort of looking to this futuristic potential of

01:52technology.

02:15It's just a sliver of that. It's still there.

02:46Here at Tate Modern in the Electric Dreams exhibition, I have three Minitel artworks.

02:52Minitel was a terminal that was introduced by France in the beginning of the 80s when

02:58France was on the cutting edge of what we now call the Internet. So the Minitel is the

03:03Internet before the Internet, the Internet before the web. So working online in the 80s

03:09was a very different experience if compared to what it feels like today with the cell

03:13phone and satellites and all of that. So these works, they move and they change color

03:21and they have a rhythm that is very specific to the Minitel network. And what was interesting

03:28is that instead of the viewer having to go to the museum to see the work because it was

03:33online, the work came to the viewer's home.

03:44And I think what's really unique about the show is that we have had kinetic art shows

04:02before and we have had digital art shows before, but we haven't had a show that tries to tell

04:08the story of art and technology since the 50s as a whole. And this is the first to do it.

04:14Absolutely. It shows you that the anxieties around AI are not new. They were all there

04:42and artists were also thinking in the Cold War period, you know, how do we turn the potential

04:48threat of technology in weapons into something optimistic and utopian and how do we connect

04:55with other people in doing that.

05:42Absolutely.

Category

Transcript

Recommended