Art and technology explored during region-wide collaboration

A unique collaboration among 12 art organizations — including three from Harvard — will explore the relationship between art and technology during a winter collective beginning Feb. 7.

Aligned with the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston’s (ICA) sweeping exhibition “Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today,” the region-wide effort will offer the public concurrent exhibitions, performances, screenings, and programs at cultural centers throughout Greater Boston area.

The Harvard organizations partnering with the ICA are the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard Art Museums, and Harvard Film Archive. Other partners include:

• Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
• MIT List Visual Arts Center
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University
• Tufts University Art Galleries
• Berklee College of Music
• Boston Cyberarts
• deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum

The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts will hold talks with new media artists Lynn Hershman Leeson (Feb. 8 at 6 p.m.) and Dara Birnbaum (March 29 at 6 p.m.).

The Harvard Art Museums’ new installation by JODI, the pioneering artist collective formed in 1994 by Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans, will be on view in the museums’ Lightbox Gallery, a collaborative space for digital projects, from Feb. 7 through April 23. One of the most influential art-makers working in the age of the internet, JODI will produce a new interactive project that plays with the histories of games and collections.

Harvard Film Archive will present “Caught in the Net: The Early Internet in the Paranoid Imagination,” a series of films that examine the cultural origin story of the internet as lodged within the paranoid imagination will be screened March 9–18. This film program emphasizes the consistency of cultural fears around the internet, while also charting the ways in which these fears have shifted over time.

Films include: “Blue Thunder” (John Badham, 1983), “From yu to me” (Aleksandra Domanović, 2013–14), “WarGames” (John Badham, 1983), “Electric Dreams” (Steve Barron, 1984), “Johnny Mnemonic” (Robert Longo, 1995), “The Ghost in the Shell” (Mamoru Oshii, 1995), “Strange Days” (Kathryn Bigelow, 1995), “Level Five” (Chris Marker, 1997), “eXistenZ:” (David Cronenberg, 1999), “Pulse” (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001), and “Southland Tales” (Richard Kelly, 2007).

The ICA’s cornerstone exhibit

“Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today,” Feb. 6–May 20,  “gives us the opportunity to examine all the forms of connectivity made possible by the internet, as well as to work in partnership with colleagues and institutions in Greater Boston,” said Jill Medvedow, Ellen Matilda Poss Director of the ICA. “The rich history of tech innovation in Boston makes this an ideal place to raise questions about community, privacy, networks, identity, surveillance and speed in a dynamic citywide experience.”

The ICA exhibition explores the widespread cultural impact of the internet on art and features the work of 60 artists, collaborations, and collectives.

Audiences and scholars around the world can explore the exhibit via a dedicated web platform. The extensive site will bring extended content and varying perspectives to the exhibition, and will virtually connect the activities of area partners.

For more information, visit the ICA, Harvard Art Museums, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, and Harvard Film Archive websites.