This exhibition was inspired by the historically important and groundbreaking exhibition of 1968, ‘Cybernetic Serendipity’ which took place at the ICA in London.
This exhibition explored the range of potential for the computer in the arts and showed a variety of visionary applications that stretched across art, design and music. star.dot.star drew on these early experiments with ‘new’ technologies, robotics, kinetics, plastics and scientific instruments, and brought together work from the 1990’s that seems to resonate with the practices and concerns of this earlier exploration of the possible relationships between art and technology.
Thirty years on artists are exploring many of the same themes, using technologies such as interactive multimedia, the internet, digital video effects and ‘intelligent’ software to continue and advance this debate. The works on show explored the possibilities and limitations of new technologies and commented upon an increasingly technologised culture.
star.dot.star created an interactive environment in which to explore work by internationally renowned artists often showing for the first time in this country. In this exhibition the visitor was an integral part of the artwork not just an observer. The aim of the exhibition was to draw attention to the complex history of the use of computers in artistic practice and to debunk the notion of the newness of technological art works.
Artists involved included:
Simon Penny (Professor of Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA, Madelon Hooykaas and Elsa Stansfield (NL), Natalie Jeremijenko (AUS) Paul De Marinis (USA) Tessa Elliott and Jonathan Jones Morris (UK) Michael Guida and Mark Winstanley (UK)