Digital materials in physical spaces
This research investigates new curatorial strategies for exhibiting digital artworks in physical exhibition spaces. It is particularly interested in the relation between the materiality of digital art and the exhibition space.In a world where digital tools are a structuring condition of life in society and of all cultural production, digital art is a powerful means of understanding our present time and our future. It can offer alternative approaches and narratives to the dominant uses of technology, highly influenced by globalized capitalism. The art institution can be a unique place to reflect on the predominant influence of technological devices on our lives and thought processes. Despite the fact that these digital works now occupy an important place in the contemporary art world, and can claim a certain historicity, there is little research into the new exhibition modalities experimented with these works, and the way in which digital art prompts us to rethink the exhibitions.The upheavals wrought by digital technology are transforming the way works are produced and exhibited. New curatorial strategies have been experimented with, and existing modalities adapted to these different forms of artistic practice. By illustrating how these exhibitions both diverge from and simultaneously build upon existing exhibition theory and practice, this thesis aims to intricately examine how artworks utilizing digital technologies transformed the way we think about and make exhibitions. What new curatorial strategies have emerged, based on the interactivity, variability and technical materiality of the works? How are the links between artist, exhibition space, work and viewer articulated in this new exhibition paradigms? How do artworks evolve over time, and how do they adapt to different exhibition spaces?