Digital Capture
Southern California and the Pixel-Based Image World
California Museum of Photography and Culver Center of the Arts
September 21, 2024 to February 2, 2025
Opening reception October 26, 2024
Digital Capture: Southern California and the Pixel-Based Image World is an ambitious exhibition spanning six decades (1962–2020s) that investigates the history and creative uses of digital imaging technology, from the genesis of digital imaging in Southern California research laboratories during the Cold War and space race of the 1960s to the ubiquity of digital media in our contemporary world. The exhibition and accompanying publication narrate the ideological shifts that occurred as digital technologies were adopted for artistic ends. Conceptually organized into themes exploring issues of agency, representation, culpability, and connection, Digital Capture features more than 40 artists working across several technological, computing, and imaging media.
Participating artists: Rebecca Allen, Refik Anadol, Natalie Bookchin, micha cárdenas, Liliana Conlisk Gallegos, Nonny de la Peña, John Divola, Dynasty Handbag, EPOCH, Elisa Giardina Papa, Goldin+Senneby, Valerie Green, Lucia Grossberger Morales, Maggie Hazen, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Huntrezz Janos, Eugene Lally, Brandon Lattu, Ahree Lee, David Maisel, Frank Malina, Judy Malloy and Cathy Marshall, Lynne Marsh, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Mobile Image (Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz), Lee Mullican, A. Michael Noll, Mendi + Keith Obadike, Charles O’Rear, Trevor Paglen, Nam June Paik, Sheila Pinkel, Sonya Rapoport, Marton Robinson, Dean Sameshima, Julia Scher, Ilene Segalove, Sonia Landy Sheridan, Barbara T. Smith, Christine Tamblyn, Penelope Umbrico, Stan VanDerBeek, Steina and Woody Vasulka, Gerardo Velazquez, Andrew Norman Wilson, Amir Zaki
Thematic Sections
In Space, Time, and War: Digital Cosmologies and Militant Terrains
Culver Center of the Arts
September 21, 2024 – April 13, 2025
The Image Is Infinite: Archiving, Digital Reproduction, and Material Obsolescence
Culver Center of the Arts
July 20, 2024 – March 23, 2025
States of Seeing: On the Conditions of Looking
Culver Center of the Arts
July 20, 2024 – March 23, 2025
Digital Ecologies and Terrestrial Plains
California Museum of Photography
August 24, 2024 – February 23, 2025
Media Matters: Spatial Antagonisms and Material Inquiries
California Museum of Photography
August 24, 2024 – February 23, 2025
Glitch Domestic
California Museum of Photography
August 24, 2024 – February 23, 2025
Digital Capture
Education & Tours
Please note that group visits must be scheduled at least three weeks in advance and are subject to availability.
Digital Capture
Digital Publication
Spanning more than six decades, from 1962 to the present, Digital Capture: Southern California and the Pixel-Based Image World forefronts artistic uses of, appropriations of, and interventions into digital imaging. From the technology’s genesis in the military-industrial-scientific complex through its ubiquity in the contemporary present, this free, clickable publication narrates the ideological, rhizomatic, and sometimes contradictory shifts that occurred as digital imaging was adopted for artistic ends. Organized around six thematic frameworks, the exhibition and this accompanying publication reflect on the ecological, domestic, and surveillance state, and issues of agency, representation, culpability, and connection.
Digital Capture
Purgatorio • Virtual Exhibition
Purgatorio is an online group exhibition created by Peter Wu+ as part of his online gallery project EPOCH. The exhibition features artists from various generations and geographies—including Lucia Grossberger Morales and Marton Robinson, also featured elsewhere in Digital Capture—with the artworks displayed in a virtual model of the Chet Holifield Federal Building in Laguna Niguel, California. Designed by modernist architect William Pereira in 1968–71, the building has supported several government entities: an aerospace agency, the Treasury Department, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Citizenship and Immigration Services, and others. Purgatorio visualizes this particular building’s role in political violence, policing, and communal displacement, particularly along the US-Mexico border. The title is taken from an unfinished poem by US poet Hart Crane, who imagined Mexico as a place of exile from rampant technological imperialism in the United States.
Credits
Digital Capture: Southern California and the Pixel-Based Image World is co-curated by Nikolay Maslov and April Baca. Exhibition concept by Douglas McCulloh.
Digital Capture: Southern California and the Pixel-Based Image World is among more than 60 exhibitions and programs presented as part of PST ART. Returning in September 2024 with its latest edition, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, this landmark regional event explores the intersections of art and science, both past and present. PST ART is presented by Getty. For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide, please visit pst.art.
This exhibition is made possible with leading support from Getty through the PST ART: Art & Science Collide initiative. Additional support is provided by the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation, Keith Downs, and the Voy and Fay Wong Family (AAPI) Endowment. Programs at UCR ARTS are supported by the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (CHASS) at UCR, and the City of Riverside.
Image: micha cárdenas and the Critical Realities Studio, Sin Sol / No Sun, 2020, screenshot of augmented reality app
UCR ARTS California Museum of Photography and Culver Center of the Arts regrets the theft of Andrew Norman Wilson’s “ScanOps” piece from Digital Capture: Southern California and the Origins of the Pixel-Based Image World. The matter has been referred to the appropriate authorities. We also thank the artist for his kind, amused, thoughtful, and collaborative response. Consequently, the work has already been replaced so our visitors will have the full experience of Digital Capture.