exonemo: UN-DEAD-LINK
Reconnecting with Internet Art
Aug. 18—Oct. 11, 2020
Onsite: Tokyo Photographic Art Museum B1F
Online: https://topmuseum.jp/un-dead-link/

Exhibition quick walk through video (1 min)

Exhibition walk through video (10 min)

UN-DEAD-LINK: Reconnecting with Internet Art
Photo, Video by MARUO Ryuichi

Having used the Internet as material for their works since its spread into the mainstream in the 1990s, net artist duo exonemo (Sembo Kensuke and Akaiwa Yae) has been a driving force in the realm of media art with their humorous approach and fresh perspective. This exhibition reconstructs representative works of the New York-based artists from their beginnings to the present, including pieces acquired for the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum’s collection, and presents a new take on the charm of their works. This large-scale exhibition of exonemo’s works, equivalent to a retrospective exhibition at a public museum, is the first in Japan and a valuable viewing opportunity. By taking a close look at the situation surrounding the art world since the advent of the Internet, viewers will reconsider the history of media and explore new possibilities for expression today.

The online venue showcases exonemo’s back catalog, along with the two online works being shown at this exhibition: "Realm" and "UN-DEAD-LINK 2020". All these are presented in an interactive timeline that chronicles the duo’s activities, offering further insight into their art. The timeline provides extra background information about the artworks, each tagged with various keywords that allow visitors to discover new connections. The exhibits at the museum, which consist of artwork and documentation, are arranged in chronological order except for "Signature, 2020" and "The Kiss". Each exhibit is also tagged with one of five thematic keywords proposed by the artists – Internet, Platform, Interface, Random, and Boundary – that link them to other works.