Date and time
-Date: 22 May 2025
Time: 17.30 – 18.30 London
Venue: Lecture Theatre 118, Marshgate, UCL East, E20 2AE
On the 22 May 2025 the curator for the exhibition Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet currently on at Tate Modern will deliver a keynote lecture as part of a four-day workshop Movers and Shakers: Strategies for the Conservation of Kinetic Art, organised by the Getty Conservation Institute, the MSc in the Conservation of Kinetic Art and Media (History of Art) UCL East and Tate.
Abstract
This presentation expands on the contents and curatorial framing of the current Tate Modern exhibition Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet (28 November 2024 – 1 June 2025). The exhibition presents a network of stories about artists who found inspiration in the methods and tools of science and technology to amplify the formal possibilities and sensorial reach of their work, looking at the evolution of mechanical and algorithmically-generated art between the 1950s and the early 1990s and connecting the work of early innovators in the fields of kinetic, optical and programmed art with the rise of digital art. In this talk, Ravaglia will focus on certain key moments in the exhibition that more overtly address the intersection with the histories of kinetic art, including movements such as ZERO, Gutai, Jikken Kobo, Arte Programmata, New Tendencies and Experiments in Art and Technology. The curatorial narrative also paid special attention to the histories of transnational display platforms and key shows where artists with a shared interest in technology and kineticism showed together, from London’s Signals Gallery and the legendary Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition of 1968 to the Nove Tendencije events in Zagreb, the Osaka Expo 1970 and the Centro de Arte y Comunicación in Buenos Aires. The talk will also address a certain ‘DIY’ attitude often driving artists to tinker with laboratory equipment consumer electronics for a range of creative, critical and emancipatory purposes, along with early collaborations and exchanges between engineers and artists, pushing the boundaries of each field of practice and sometimes dreaming up new technological possibilities made possible by the interplay between artistic and scientific imaginaries.
If you have any questions about these events, please contact: p.laurenson@ucl.ac.uk
