Hardwired: Foundational Works in Digital Art

Hardwired: Foundational Works in Digital Art showcases key works from the Castellani Art Museum’s collection that trace a rich, often overlooked history of digital and computer-based artmaking. Spanning from the 1970s to the early 2000s, the exhibition brings together artists who each explored the intersection of art and technology in groundbreaking ways.

Featured artists include Nam June Paik and Steina and Woody Vasulka, pioneers of video art; Sol LeWitt and Agnes Martin, whose infinite variations of grids and instruction-based drawings prefigured algorithmic generative practices; Jenny Holzer, who transformed scrolling LED text into poetic public intervention; Bonnie Gordon, whose early photographic manipulations anticipated digital editing tools; Mark Kostabi, whose works interrogate automation and authorship; Rita DeWitt, who fused photography and digital processes to explore memory and identity; and Robert Martin, who has long championed the integration of science and art.

While these works — spanning video, text, photography, and conceptual experimentation — have previously been shown in various contexts, this exhibition brings them together for the first time to trace a lineage of artists engaging with technology long before terms like “digital art” or “AI” became mainstream. The show highlights how these foundational works anticipated the creative, critical, and cultural questions that continue to shape contemporary digital practices.

The exhibition is installed in CAM’s new Black Cube Gallery, a semi-permanent space dedicated to showcasing digital and screen-based work from the museum’s collection. Modeled after the “black box” theater concept, the gallery offers an immersive, light-controlled environment designed to enhance projection, motion, and time-based media. Serving as a precursor to CAM’s new digital art gallery, this space introduces visitors to the historical and conceptual foundations of digital practice. By highlighting the long-standing relationship between art and technology, the Black Cube Gallery provides essential context for understanding why and how CAM is centering digital art in its contemporary programming.

Featured Artwork: Robert Martin, I Cut My Cake with a Circular Saw, 1988, Duratran with mixed media