Peter Harrington is pleased to present our exhibit for Frieze Masters 2018, The Machine and the Cloud.
The invention of printing by movable type in the mid-fifteenth century changed human culture. What had previously been held in the nebulous collective memory of oral and scribal culture took shape on the page by mechanical means. Since then, mechanization has transformed every aspect of our lives. With our data now migrating to the cloud, our exhibit explores some of the key milestones on this long journey.
From Gutenberg to Google, from Acts to Apple, we travel from a leaf of the first printed book, to a brochure for the most iconic of personal computers. Along the way we encounter books showing mechanical marvels both real and imaginary. We see battles between man and machine. We trace the impact of mechanization on thought, politics and art. We uncover harbingers in print of the coming computer age.
We are immensely grateful to Sir Norman Rosenthal, who conceived and curated this exhibition.
