Electric Dreams : Art and Technology Before the Internet

Discover how artists used machines and algorithms to create mesmerising and mind-bending art between the 1950s and 1980s

From the birth of op art to the dawn of cybernetics, artists have found new ways to engage the senses and play with our perception. Bringing together groundbreaking works by a wide range of international artists who have engaged with science and material innovation and embraced developments in digital technology, Electric Dreams celebrates the innovators of optical, kinetic, programmed, and digital art, who pioneered a new era of immersive sensory installations and automatically generated works to imagine the visual language of the future.

Discover how artists used machines and algorithms to create mesmerising and mind-bending art between the 1950s and the early 1990s. From collaged punch cards to early experiments with virtual reality, artists have found inspiration in technology to invent new forms and new ways to engage the senses. Bringing together works by groundbreaking artists from across Asia, Europe and the Americas, Electric Dreams celebrates the innovators of optical, kinetic, programmed and digital art, who imagined the visual languages of the future through immersive, responsive and automatically generated works. Their circuits of connections and creativity, of new thinking and tinkering are illuminated here through the perspectives of artists, curators and art historians. Hundreds of illustrations of intriguing and often stunningly beautiful artworks are accompanied by newly researched archival images, casting fresh light on this extraordinary period. From Rebecca Allen to Edward Zajec, from Katsuhiro Yamaguchi to Suzanne Treister, these artists were unafraid to push boundaries. They redefined what art can be, channelling how electronics and computation radically transformed everyday life before the dawn of the internet age.