Art X Tech @ SJMA

Image: Nam June Paik (1932-2006), Internet Dweller: efpn.two.cvaph,1994, vintage tv sets with light fixtures, 52 x 50 x 24 in. On loan from Art Bridges. © Estate of the Artist.
 

Inspired by Nam June Paik's Internet Dweller and new media art from the collection, SJMA launches a series of programs that examine the impacts of technological growth, the human labor behind Artificial Intelligence, and more.

Nam June Paik's Internet Dweller attests to the artist's long-standing fascination with human-technology interaction. Paik revitalizes archaic analog technologies and shapes them into an anthropomorphic sculpture that proves the boundary between human and machine. The work title forsees our contemporary digital era, questioning how much the internet will consume us and whether we will eventually exist wholly inside it as obsolete dwellers.

See the work now in Tending and Dreaming: Stories from the Collection.

Screenshot of Technoutopia.exe, an exhibition on New Art City. Courtesy of the CADRE Media Lab at San Jose State University and Leonardo/ISAST.

A virtual exhibition organized by San Jose State University’s CADRE Laboratory for New Media and Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology

Technoutopia.exe: Fragments from the Archive 1984–2014 surveys three decades of pioneering work by primarily women artists who helped shape the cultural and technological landscapes of Silicon Valley. The exhibition examines how the ideals of early digital culture, grounded in the promises of techno-utopianism, came to scaffold the infrastructures and myths of networked life. 

The exhibition is presented as a virtual experience, drawing primarily on historical records, documentation, and artists’ ephemera. By treating the archive as an active, executable system rather than a static repository, the project highlights how histories of digital art are preserved, interpreted, and made newly accessible in online environments. Visitors are invited to reflect on how technological worlds are built while also learning about the curatorial and archival practices that bring these underrecognized stories forward in the present. 

Presented alongside Motherboards, Technoutopia.exe illuminates the foundational role of women artists in shaping Silicon Valley’s digital cultures and imaginaries and foregrounds the work of preserving and amplifying these histories in the present. 

New Art City is a virtual exhibition toolkit for new media art with a focus on copresence and experiencing digital art together. Shows are real-time multiplayer and accessed using a web browser on computer or mobile device, with no need to register, install extra software or enter any personal information.