Who remembers the days when phones had cords, video games meant arcades, and the internet sounded like it was screeching when you wanted to use it? Well, an all-new exhibit at the Tate Modern takes us back to those very days (and beyond), exploring the way technology has influenced, and continues to transform the art world, spotlighting incredible artists and works from the pre-internet age.
Electric Dreams is a mind-bending exhibition that takes visitors on an immersive journey through the technological age, tracing our leap from the analogue world of the past to the digital wonders we know, love, and use today.
Electric Dreams: Art & Technology Before The Internet
This fantastical exhibition encompasses early digital art across five decades – starting with the 1950s – including hypnotic video installations, machine-made art, early computing pieces, and more. It captures the magic, nostalgia, and sometimes unsettling impact of tech on art, identity, and connection.
Electric Dreams explores how artists used cutting-edge tools to expand cultural horizons and imagine the future we are now living in. Highlights include Otto Piene’s Light Room (Jena), which envelopes the viewer in a continuously gorgeous light ‘ballet’, and British-Canadian Brion Gysin’s extraordinary homemade mechanical device, Dreamachine no.9, which is a kaleidoscopic trip in the best possible way.
There are even explorations of the earliest days of VR, which paved the way for today’s digital technologies and unmissable immersive experiences. These artists’ pieces particularly stand out for being among the very first to adopt these new technologies in their radical experiments and work.
Art and tech collide at the Tate!
So, for all those who have spent their lives witnessing the rapid evolution of technology, and its intrinsic impact on the art world, Electric Dreams is a thrilling and must-see glimpse into the past; a past that has had incredible influence over modern and contemporary art, and undeniably, the art of the future.
Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before The Internet is on display at the Tate Modern until June 1, 2025. General Admission to the exhibition costs £22. For more information and tickets, click here.