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Digital Revolution: A Historical Exhibition About Art and Technology

Inspire

Relevant works in the fields of code, 3D printing, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and technologic fashion are on display in this showing.

As film would do at the beginning of the 20th century, over the last decades, the digital revolution has significantly affected the arts and the entertainment industry. Thanks to the development of computers, cameras, synths and other technological devices, the artistic field now enjoys new horizons, which until recently had been inaccessible, and are beginning to be taken advantage of with maturity.

The consequences of this binary revolution can go by unnoticed, mainly for young generations that grew up with these technologic developments and thus perceive them as if they had always been there. This is precisely what Barbican Center, in London, is reflecting on through a memorable exhibition.

Digital Revolution is an immersive exhibition that shows commissioned works and pieces which reflect, with admirable skill, the essence of the technological revolution. The spectator interacts with cult and independent videogames and with interactive high-tech installations, sonorous and visual shows.

It opened its doors the 3rd of July and will remain open until the 14th of September. Encompassing the marvels of code and 3D printing, augmented reality and artificial intelligence, web art and technology applied in fashion, the exhibition will feature corporations such as Google, as well as independent artists, programmers and musical groups that bear the technological banner in every single one of their creations.

The curatorship and montage of the event is organized as follows: Digital Archaeology, Creative Spaces, We create, The State of Play, Sound & Vision, Our Digital Futures, Indie Games, DevArt, Comissions Umbrellium & Universal Everything, Marshmallow Laser Feast: Forest.

In the essay “Behind the Times”, Eric Hobsbawn sentenced the failure of the artistic vanguards before cinema. The machine and its effects to the dynamics of life displaced the masses from exhibitions rooms to projection theatres.

Then Hobsbawm reflected on how a futurist painting by Balla is silenced in the presence of film. But, unlike the events of the past, nowadays there seems to be no friction between technology and what is considered art —in the midst of the digital revolution, a futurist painting by Balla can be rendered, animated or reproduced in full HD. The digital revolution includes all.

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