The Wick List

Viewing Electric Dreams Art and Technology Before the Internet at Tate Modern

Tate Modern’s newly-opened bonanza group show takes you back to a place unimaginable from where we are now: a time pre-internet. This long running survey of early era digital art moves from the psychedelic 1950s to the beginning of the internet era in the 1980s, taking you through the experiments of artists who wanted to innovate with the way we see and sense.

Tracing a trajectory through kinetic, optical and digital works, inspired by mathematical principles, and making use of new tech and industrial processes, artists this is an ambitious examination of how we got to here, and how visual language was pushing perception long before the network as we know it.

Look out for Atsuko Tanaka’s Electric Dress, a sculpture, painting, installation and costume originally created for a performance in 1956. This wearable artwork crafted from hand-painted industrial bulbs and incandescent tubes was hot and heavy – and wearing it could have been fatal in the event of a short circuit. The Zero Group’s founder Otto Piene’s Light Room (Jena) is another unmissable work, a key piece in understanding artistic approaches to technology of the time. The installation comprises five light-emitting sculptures, each fitted with motors, synchronised to perform a theatrical light play or ‘ballet’.

Share story
Dates
28 November 2024 — 01 June 2025
READ MORE
The Wick Culture - Tirzah Garwood, Portrait of Peggy Angus, oil on canvas, 1949. Private Collection.
The Wick List

Viewing Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious at Dulwich Picture Gallery

The Wick Culture - Studio Saffar dishes with lights
The Wick List

Viewing 'Handcrafted by the World' at SoShiro London

The Wick Culture - James Barnor, Drum Cover Girl Erlin Ibreck, 1966
The Wick List

Viewing As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic at Saatchi Gallery

The Wick Culture - María Berrío
The Spectators, 2024
Collage with Japanese papers and watercolour paint on canvas.
© María Berrío
Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro
The Wick List

Viewing María Berrío: The End of Ritual at Victoria Miro Gallery

The Wick Culture - Hank Willis Thomas
The Toiler and Circe (variation without
flash), 2024. © Hank Willis Thomas,
courtesy Pace Gallery
The Wick List

Viewing Hank Willis Thomas: Kinship of the Soul at Pace Gallery

The Wick Culture - Self Made exhibition photo by Fernando Manoso
The Wick List

Viewing Self-Made: Reshaping Identities at The Foundling Museum