Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet ★★★★ Tate Modern | Nov 28, 2024 - Jun 1, 2025


Artists fascination with technology and science is not a new phenomenon. One need only recall the work of Leonardo da Vinci. Indeed, it is the idea that art and science exist as separate worlds that is actually the more curious notion. This ground breaking retrospective explores the fascination of artists with so-called scientific ideas, while these creators also make scientific interrogation the subject of their artistic presentations. The exhibition examines the synergy of what we now see as two distinctive fields of human endeavour from the 1950s up to the beginning of the internet age. Over 70 artists from Iran to Chile and from Japan to Europe are showcased in fifteen galleries with over 150 works on display. Basically chronological in its presentation, the show is comprised of four group rooms, with the other galleries providing immersive experiences or focusing on a particular practise. It is an extraordinary re-examination of psychedelic, optical, kinetic, programmed and digital works which are intended to provoke the viewer into reconsidering their environment and their place in it. Many of the pieces are interactive blurring the distinction between the observer and the observed, and questioning the nature of reality and being. Colour, light and movement are explored and manipulated to create images and settings that disorient and also resituate their audience. This is a show that offers a great deal to explore, and it is important to budget enough time so that one can relish such works as Carlos Cruz-Diez's "Environnement Chromointerférent" (1974/2018) and Liliane Lijn's "The Bride" (1988). There is a lot to take in here, and as we are on the brink of an Artificial Intelligence revolution, this review of the interdependent reality of technology and art becomes a thought provoking, not-to-be-missed experience.

Rated: ★★★★

Reviewed by J.C.
Image: Suzanne Treister, Fictional Videogame Stills/Are You Dreaming? 1991-2. Courtesy the artist, Annely Juda Fine Art, London and P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York

When, Where, Getting there:
Map & Location: Bankside, London SE1, UK

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