Art in Motion. 100 Masterpieces with and through Media

»Art in Motion. 100 Masterpieces with and through Media. An Operative Canon« will portray the development of media arts by showcasing pivotal pioneering works that utilize technical devices: from photography to cinematography and sound art, the theater of machines and projections, radiophonic and televisual art, the art video, media-based action and Fluxus arts, and the networked and collaborative artistic practices of the last decades.

The works in the exhibition have not been selected on the basis of the classic notion of an image which is oriented on painting, for this always attempts to bend back the new media towards the traditional visual arts and hinders understanding of how the media arts have developed. The coevolution of wheel-based technologies, such as clockwork and calculating machines, transportation machines like automobiles and trains, as well as the image machines that have not only brought forth moving pictures, moving sculptures, and moving spectators, but also ushered in the changeover to electromagnetic production, storage, and distribution media, is an area that is still a mystery to the wider art world. This is why it is important to advance understanding of the development of this art genre by presenting a selection of canonical works.