Anna Pedersen

Welcome to the future past!

Mediamatic part of Belgian exhibition.

In 2015 iMAL in Brussels will present a series of exhibitions, workshops and symposiums on Cultural Heritage in the Digital Age, in collaboration with PACKED, Centre of Expertise in Digital Heritage. Mediamatic is featured in the first event of this program, the exhibition Welcome to the Future!

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Cover of "V.O.L.V.O Airbag" cd-rom, 1995 - Joyce Chen_陳禹先

Welcome to the Future! shows a historical selection of art & culture cd-roms and electronic artworks published on floppies, produced primarily in the 90's and conveying the many visions and utopias around the upcoming digital world. It shows the dynamic of pre-web electronic publishing, user interface before the internet's normative dotcom-design and the playable interactions between sounds and images in generative art and digital literature. One of the CD-Roms being exhibited is the V.O.L.V.O. Airbag (Can Save Lives).

V.O.L.V.O. Airbag (Can Save Lives) was a Mac CD-Rom produced by Jans Possel and Paul Groot, published with the Vol8#2/3 Home Issue of the Mediamatic Magazine in April 1995. The work was the third Mediamatic CD-Rom published, and featured the trio V.O.L.V.O. and their one-song concept, where several experienced dj's remixed their original song Airbag (Can save lives). This is accompanied by films of multi-talent Yariv Alter Fin, and surrounded by products of V.O.L.V.O.-friends, to create the ultimate state of music and dance.

Thanks to collectors, artists and media art organizations in Europe, USA, Japan and Australia, Welcome to the Future! will show a selection of around 50 cd-roms and floppies focused around three central themes - visions of the upcoming digital world, artistic digital expressions and hypermedia documents on contemporary arts. The visitors will be able to play with the presented works on either vintage computers or on modern hardware with emulation software.

The exhibition is open March 19th-April 26th 2015 and is free. You can find more information in the Facebook-event.