Assemblance delights the hand as well as the eye and ear (Image: Assemblance, 2014/courtesy of Umbrellium)
Retro arcade games, cutting-edge special effects and interactive birdmen are all on show at a major retrospective of digital art at London鈥檚 Barbican Centre
Tiny pixelated organisms live, move, multiply and die in cold little ponds of light on the floor. Mathematician John Conway鈥檚 1970 Game of Life remains one of the most potent demonstrations of how a simple algorithm can produce complex, thought-provoking and sometimes beautiful effects. It鈥檚 a fitting opening for a show called Digital Revolution.
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But what sort of revolution is it? An introductory collection of vintage home computers, arcade games, electro-pop jukeboxes and special effects show-reels seems, at first glance, to be an exercise in retromania. Look harder, though, and you can make out the features of things to come. Early experiments in multimedia, hypertext, personas and avatars, connectivity, crowdsourcing and autonomy 鈥� often derided as opaque and pointless at the time 鈥� seem prescient now.
Consider Paul Brown鈥檚 1977 Builder Eater, in which algorithms struggle for control of the screen, leaving only cryptic patterns behind: a foreshadowing of the mega-bucks bouts fought by today鈥檚 flash-trading financial bots. John Maeda鈥榮 1998 Reactive Books reorganises texts into interactive experiences that anticipate both the diversification of reading and the incongruity that arises when digital designers mimic the familiar audio-visual cues of older technologies. And tucked unassumingly below screens blaring out eye-candy stands a monochrome monitor offering a chance to browse The Project 鈥� Tim Berners-Lee鈥檚 very first website.
A succession of quirky interactive sculptures and installations revealing the complex construction of key scenes from the films Gravity and Inception, together with a selection of cutting-edge music videos, certainly delight and dazzle. But they leave the intellect largely unmoved. By the time I鈥檇 reached the blingtastic bombast of will.i.am鈥檚 Pharaonic shrine to himself, I was beginning to wonder if Digital Revolution was more about using digital tools to provide celebrity feedstock than effect a creative transformation.
Stranded birdmen
The next stage of the show turns its gaze inward, with installations that invite visitors to view themselves transformed into glitchy cyborgs, smoky-eyed wraiths and stranded birdmen. Despite the high sentiments of their artists鈥� statements, it鈥檚 hard not to see these works as algorithmic selfies, riffing off Instagram鈥檚 filters and the fad of smartphone narcissism.
Some smell a marketing rat. A group of have protested at what they see as commissioning partner Google鈥檚 corporate rebranding of 鈥渁rt made with code鈥� (a tradition six decades old) as 鈥淒evArt鈥�, and have created a website full of unofficial exhibits that can be browsed only within London鈥檚 Barbican Centre, where Digital Revolution is being held. It鈥檚 a uniquely digital alternative to physical vandalism, but is it too polite a protest to be truly provocative?
Digital Revolution itself extends well beyond the gallery, with areas dedicated to smart clothing, indie games and more scattered around the Barbican鈥檚 public spaces. Follow the path of least resistance and you will end up deep in its bowels, to be confronted once again with patterns of pixels moving around the floor. This time, though, they are shaped and guided by the people in the room. A gentle sweep of the hand draws a curtain of laser light into being; a jab makes it fall apart again (see photo). Pair up with a neighbour, and new effects and behaviours become possible.
Called Assemblance, this is one of the few exhibits to delight the hand as well as the eye and ear. It鈥檚 partly a reaction to the detachment of the works above, says Usman Haque, director of creators Umbrellium. 鈥淚n a way, when you can connect with anyone, it returns the focus to the local: who you鈥檙e with, and what you鈥檙e doing.鈥� Digital Revolution ends as it began: but this time, the organisms living amid the primordial digital soup are us.
is at London鈥檚 until 14 September 2014