- The internet has
affected all of our lives.
How we date, how we shop,
how we travel, how we eat.
And of course the internet
has affected visual art.
This exhibition looks at
the impact of the internet
on visual production.
How artists think, how
they see, and of course,
how they produce.
The exhibition is called "Art
in the Age of the Internet,
1989 to Today."
The show has over 60
artists, collaboratives,
and collectives, and has
work in every medium.
Painting, sculpture, video, photography,
web-based projects, virtual
reality, and even performance.
The internet has been
around since the 1960s.
However, in 1989, the World
Wide Web was invented.
With the invention of the World Wide Web,
web-based browsers like Mosaic
and Netscape were introduced.
And these were browsers
that anybody could use,
and the internet became a
truly democratic medium.
This exhibition is organized
around five thematic sections.
They are Networks and
Circulation, Hybrid Bodies,
Virtual Worlds, States of Surveillance,
and Performing the Self.
We have work in all mediums
by artists of all generations
responding to that theme.
For example, in Networks and Circulation,
we have a great video
piece by Camille Henrot
titled "Grosse Fatigue,"
which is all about how
we live our lives today, with open windows
and open screens, and
it's about the fatigue
of the circulation of
images and information.
A video piece by the collective
HowDoYouSayYaminAfrican?
is all about the role of
activism on the internet.
In Hybrid Bodies, we have
a video piece by Ed Atkins
which uses a digital
avatar for the artist.
And in States of Surveillance,
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
has a video piece with a large eyeball
that tracks the viewer
through the gallery.
In Performing the Self, we
have two interrelated works:
one a self portrait by
the artist and performer
Juliana Huxtable, and a sculpture of her
by the sculptor Frank Benson.
Both of those works look at the fluidity
of gender identity today,
online and in our real lives.
When one exits the show,
in the Founders Gallery,
there's a virtual reality piece by
Canadian artist Jon Rafman
that is site specific
to the ICA and to the
architecture of the ICA.
"Art in the Age of the
Internet" is an exhibition
I've been wanting to do for a long time.
It's not a show of screens,
it's not a show of technology.
It's a show about technology,
and how technology has affected our lives,
our relationships, politics,
how we understand ourselves,
how we understand the truth.
