6 exhibitions to understand the relationship between digital and real world today

How many symbols and mysteries can be found in a single work? In the case of The Garden of Earthly Delights (1500-1505) the answer could be: countless. A stone’s throw from the Prado Museum, which houses the famous triptych by Hieronymus Bosch, Matadero Madrid, in collaboration with Colección SOLO, is hosting a group exhibition that explores the inexhaustible appeal of this work through new and old media: digital animation, AI-art, sound installations, site-specific performances, painting and sculpture. The exhibition features 15 new artists from the world all over, including SMACK, Mario Klingemann, Miao Xiaochun, Cassie McQuater, Lusesita, Mu Pan and Cool 3d World. Inaugurated in October 2021, it will be on display until 27 February 2021.

From the gardens of delights to actual gardens... thanks to augmented reality, Outset Contemporary Art Fund and Jerusalem Botanical Garden have transformed 12 botanical gardens from all over the world, including Jerusalem, Cape Town, Edinburgh, Melbourne and Tucson, into exhibition spaces. Co-curators Hadas Maor and Tal Michael Haring invite visitors to rediscover art and nature simultaneously, virtually hosting 13 international artists, including Ai Weiwei, Refik Anadol, Isaac Julien CBE and Mel O’Callaghan. A “return to nature” that is more than necessary in the light of the pandemic and the ongoing climate crisis. Inaugurated in September 2021, the exhibition will be on view until September 2022 and can be viewed through the Seeing the Invisible mobile app, downloadable from Google Play and App Store. 

The result of a collaboration between Fondazione Prada and gta exhibitions (ETH Zurich), Sturm&Drang is “an exhibition that reviews and investigates some of the main issues related to computer-generated imagery”, revealing the sets and presets of CGI production, as co-curator Luigi Alberto Cippini (Armature Globale) says, but it is also “more than an exhibition”, as co-curators Fredi Fischli and Niels Olsen (gta exhibitions) add. The project is involving different realities, including students, architects, artists and teachers, helping to create a green community and discipline. It started during the Sturm&Drang Studio online masterclasses, and it continued with the just-concluded exhibition at Prada Aoyama Tokyo, the one held in September at the Osservatorio Fondazione Prada, open until 23 January 2022, and in the future will move to Zurich. 

Remember the feeling of entering an amusement arcade? The darkness, the people chatting and the joy of playing Tetris on a screen that is bigger and more colourful than the Game Boy one. Virtual Realms: Videogames Transformed, curated by the Barbican Centre and the creator of Tetris Effect and Rez Infinite in the flesh, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, might just give you that feeling. The exhibition presents a selection of 21st-century video games as an art form, turning them into large-scale immersive installations. In addition to Tetsuya and his Enhance team, participants include KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS (creators of DEATH STRANDING), thatgamecompany (creators of Sky: Children of the Light), David OReilly (artist and creator of Everything), Tequila Works (the makers of Deadlight and RiME), and Media Molecule (creators of LittleBigPlanet). The exhibition, which opened in Singapore’s Museum of Art and Science in June 2021, will be held until January 2022, and then, we hope, will be displayed in other locations around the world. 

Siphonophores are highly specialised invertebrates that live in symbiosis with each other to ensure the survival of their colony. In order to understand how to tackle the climate crisis together, SUPERFLEX focuses on other species, exploring the depths of the sea. This is how Vertical Migration came about, a digital animation that allows us to listen to and identify with one of the silent majorities that populate our planet. Moved by a similar intention, the sculpture and participatory work Interspecies Assembly aims to be a “meeting point to nurture dialogue between species”, a place where to slow down and listen. After its debut at the 76th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York, Interspecies Assembly begins its world tour: these days, it’s at BLOX and the Danish Architecture Center in Copenhagen, and it will stay there until 28 November 2021. 

In nature, when two ecosystems share a liminal space, The Edge Effect, a happy explosion of biodiversity, takes place. Thus, in the exhibition curated by Chiara Bardelli Nonino and Jordan Andreson, artists from a hybrid community meet on the border between localism and globalisation, the vastness of the digital and the fragmentary nature of reality, creating unique and varied narratives of identity. Andy Picci, Kamilia Kard, Karol Sudolski do it through CGI animation and 3D modelling; Jon Emmony x Del Core, Sam Gregg and Riccardo Maria Chiacchio use the language of fashion; Elena Cremona and Isabelle Landicho, Kelly Costigliolo, Rachele Maistrello, Karim El Maktafi, Vashish Soobah, Marzio Emilio Villa, Alba Zari, choose photography and poetry to tell their origins and the exchange between cultures. Until 26 November at Marsèlleria, the Marsèll gallery in Milan.