Summoning the Ghosts of Modernity
Digital technologies cut across all areas of cultural production, transforming the structures inherited from modernity that continue to underpin our societies. Summoning the Ghosts of Modernity examines the implications of these technologies on creation, memory, and representation, and probing their limits through perspectives such as post-modernity, non-modernity and extra-modernity.
Curated by Lívia Nolasco-Rózsás and Esteban Gutiérrez Jiménez
Artists: Jeremy Bailey, Juan Covelli, Damjanski, fabric | ch [Patrick Keller y Christian Babski], Astrid González, Carolyn Kirschner, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, and Nomasmetaforas [Clara Melniczuk and Julian Dupont]
Emerging in the late 18th century as both a historical period and a cultural-intellectual paradigm, modernity established a series of meta-narratives centered on scientific and technological progress, the triumph of reason, and economic development as driving forces of globalized societies. At the same time, its consolidation intensified social inequalities, cultural alienation, and environmental degradation, leaving a lasting legacy of colonialism and extractivism.
The ghosts of modernity are invoked here through two digital models that reactivate and reinterpret iconic samples of critical thinking on modernity: the ehixibitions Les Immatériaux (1985, Centre Pompidou, Paris) and Iconoclash (2002, ZKM | Karlsruhe, Germany). Reconstructions of these landmark shows offer a novel format for accessing historical exhibitions and exploring them as archives they evolved into since their presentation. Digital technologies expand access to cultural heritage and amplify the underlying concepts of their original versions.
The exhibition brings together works that engage directly with these digital models alongside artworks that explore, within specific local contexts, how digital systems redefine the relationship with art, information, and the symbolic. Through diverse media—including 3D animation, augmented reality, avatars, and video games—as well as ancestral technologies such as mambe and the coca leaf, the artists investigate novel forms of representation and critique of modernity.
Summoning the Ghosts of Modernity, therefore, implies questioning the relationship between technology and power – a connection tied to historical development and its social consequences. From this perspective, the exhibition raises several questions: How do information technologies shape the perception and mediation of modern art? What is the significance of institutional critique in the digital age? And can digital media symbolically invoke artifacts expropriated from their places of origin?
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