In the 1960s, electronic media began reformatting the nature of images and how we see. Unlike static paintings or sculptures, video and digital images are dynamic and interactive, made of abstract patterns of information that are manipulated, stored, and shared as electronic signals or numerical bits of data.
At the very same moment, an emerging movement called “Op” (short for “Optical”) took art and popular culture by storm. Op artists use abstract patterns to create optical illusions that are dynamic and interactive, much like the electronic images of the time. Could it be more than coincidental that the curves of Op art resemble electronic video signals, or that its grids suggest pixilated digital pictures? In fact, Op art emerged at the same time as video and digital art, and many Op artists would turn to using these technologies, just as many pioneering video and digital artists turned to Op art for inspiration.
Bringing together more than ninety works spanning six decades, Electric Op examines how artists have used abstraction to explore the relationship between perception and technology. While today considered an art historical “dead end” with few echoes in contemporary art, Op art in fact became the first artistic movement of the Information Age, paving the way for art to be abstracted into analog and digital circuits. Just as optical illusions help us “see” ourselves in the act of seeing, Op art can help us see how vision itself has been transformed by electronic media.