Electronic Superhighway

You’d expect YouTube, Instagram, image manipulation and the Dark Web to feature in a show about how the invention of computers and the internet have impacted on artists and irrevocably changed the terrain of contemporary art. And they do, in work by current art world darlings such as Jon Rafman, Ryan Trecartin and Hito Steyerl. What the Whitechapel’s ambitious first show of 2016 also offers, however, is a surprisingly extensive history of the subject. The exhibition kicks off with the very recent stuff before taking you back to the paleolithic period (1966), when the group Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT), founded by engineers Billy Klüver and Fred Waldhauer and including artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol, staged ‘9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering’ in New York, a groundbreaking series of events that challenged the conventions of art by incorporating new technology.

BACK TO THE FUTURE: SIX DECADES OF ART AND TECHNOLOGY