London Whitechapel Gallery Displays 50 Years of Multimedia Works

Internet Dreams by Nam June Paik (1994)

Think that digital art is new? The Electronic Superhighway 2016-1966 exhibition at London’s Whitechapel Gallery is derived from a term coined in 1974 by South Korean video art pioneer Nam June Paik. The show covers the lengthy narrative of art and technology, beginning with work created at the turn of the century and ending with Experiments in Art and Technology, or EAT, a New York art cooperative that staged several exhibitions from 1966 onwards.

Along the way, the new exhibition highlights the impacts of computer technology and the Internet on artists. It includes new and rarely seen multimedia works. Nam’s own work, Internet Dreams (1994), a video wall of 52 monitors displaying electronically processed abstract images, is among them. Rewind further and there are works using programmes to create abstracts and media connecting multiple sites globally. whitechapelgallery.org

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