Art and Technology: The New Frontier

Innovative online lecture from the National Gallery on how technology might influence art in the next decade.

Jacky Klein from the Courtauld took us through various new technologies and how they had been used by artists. It should have coincided with the Durer exhibition which is now later in the year as a comparison to how he responded to the new technology of his time, printing.

I would say most of the work she discussed was conceptual art so were more about analysing idea rather than producing fine art works however there were some fascinating projects. I must admit I don’t like virtual reality so I won’t rushing to see Jon Rafman’s “Sculpture Garden” which combines a VR maze with a real sculpture. However I did like Cai Guo-Qiang’s “Fireworks Over Beijing” which combined images of an alabaster model of the Forbidden City with film of fireworks over it to represent the fact they are now illegal in the city due to fire.

I did like some of the AI works including the one shown here in which Simon Weckert got 99 second hand phones and walked then around Berlin to confuse Google maps and create a virtual traffic jam. I loved the anarchic feel to this.

She also discussed the effect of the Covid pandemic on galleries who have had to speed up digitisation programs and quickly develop new ways of engaging people who can’t come to the gallery. I’m off to check out the Royal Academy’s online recreation of the hang of Charles I’s art collection as it might have appeared in Whitehall Palace.

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