Holy Fire. Art of the Digital Age - curated by Yves Bernard & Domenico Quaranta :: April 18 – 30, 2008 :: iMAL Center for Digital Cultures and Technology, Bruxelles.

iMAL Center for Digital Cultures and Technology is proud to present Holy Fire. Art of the Digital Age a collective exhibition featuring a unique panel of digital artworks created in the last years by internationally known new media artists, and coming from galleries and collections from around the world (USA, Europe, Russia). Holy Fire is an attempt to explore how new media art, bypassing all the stereotypes connected with its presumed immateriality and difficulties of maintenance, was able to enter the art market.

Artists: Cory ARCANGEL, Gazira BABELI, BOREDOMRESEARCH, Christophe BRUNO, Grégory CHATONSKY, Miguel CHEVALIER, Vuk COSIC, Shane HOPE, JODI, LAb[au], Joan LEANDRE, Golan LEVIN, Olia LIALINA & Dragan ESPENSCHIED, Eva and Franco MATTES aka 0100101110101101.ORG, Alison MEALEY, Mark NAPIER, Casey REAS, Charles SANDISON, Antoine SCHMITT, Yacine SEBTI, Alexei SHULGIN & Aristarkh CHERNYSHEV, John. F. SIMON, Jr., Paul SLOCUM, Wolfgang STAEHLE, Eddo STERN, UBERMORGEN.COM, Carlo ZANNI.

Holy Fire is, in fact, featured into the “Off Program” of Art Brussels, the international contemporary art fair (April 18 - 21, 2008). Taking its cue from this occasion, the exhibition wants to show that new media art is just art of this century, wants to reduce the gap between digital art and contemporary art, and to participate in a broader understanding and acceptance of digital media and cultures.

Art of our Time

The artworks in Holy Fire are not new media art, but simply art of our time: art which appropriates institutional or corporate identities, creates fictional identities, hacks softwares and game engines for its own purposes, infiltrates online or offline communities in order to portray them or their own myths, subverts existing tools or creates its own tools, explores the aesthetics of computation and information spaces; or, more simply, uses computer hardware and software in order to create art which talks about our world.

With the accelerated technological development (e.g. large flat screens, powerful beamers, ubiquitous computing, fast network) and the sociological and cultural acceptance of digital tools and media, new media art is becoming one of the main currents of 21th century art, and is entering into our everyday life in our office, in public or corporate buildings as well as in our home

Collectible Artworks

Holy Fire is probably the first exhibition to show only collectible new media artworks already on the art market, in the form of traditional media (prints, videos, sculptures) or customized new media objects. Holy Fire presents contemporary artworks made with contemporary technologies and designed to be collectible.

Holy Fire, the title of the exhibition is a reference to a well-known book by Bruce Sterling, a book which, among other issues, envision the art of the (at that time, future) digital age. In the same time, the issue makes reference to the passion that helps a growing number of people (artists, curators, gallery owners and collectors) to take care of an art that is temporary and variable by definition.