NEW YORK – Hyundai Motor Company and Rhizome of the New Museum announced the launch of World on a Wire, a global art exhibition for the gallery and the web, available online beginning January 28. World on a Wire represents the first collaboration in the recently announced partnership between Hyundai Motor and Rhizome to create platforms worthy of innovative, emergent digital art practices.

World on a Wire features 11 works, of which seven are commissions, by global artists who have expressed themselves through a variety of digital mediums. Their work explores the possibilities and poetics of simulation as artistic practice. The inaugural edition of World on a Wire features curatorial and program contributions by the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.

“The exhibition aims to explore artistic practices engaged with emergent born-digital technologies,” said Cornelia Schneider, Vice President and the Head of Global Experiential Marketing at Hyundai Motor. “Through our partnership with Rhizome, we hope to offer new way of experiencing digital art and connect people through inspiring cultural experiences at the three Hyundai Motorstudios around the globe and in the online space.”

“Creating ‘World on a Wire,’ and this new partnership with Hyundai Motor, was an opportunity for Rhizome to support artists working with new technologies at the very highest level,” said Michael Connor, Rhizome’s Artistic Director. “In this exhibition, we were able to bring together installations that mix traditional artistic techniques with high-tech methods to respond to critical issues in today’s digital culture.”

Among the highlights of the exhibition are works that involve mixed reality technologies, such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). These include I’m my loving memory (2020–2021), new plexiglass sculptures with AR interaction from New York-based Rachel Rossin; Nike (2018/2021) by Los Angeles-based, Greek-born Theo Triantafyllidis, a trompe l’oeil sculpture of the artist’s Ork avatar at work in their studio, viewed through a movable, large-scale flat-panel screen; and Dungeon: Maximalism HyperBody (2021) by Beijing-based Pete Jiadong Qiang, a vivid mixed-reality architecture, comprising a physical installation as well as virtual environments experienced through a VR headset.

Theo Triantafyllidis was born in 1988 in Athens, Greece, and received an MFA at Design Media Arts UCLA in 2016. Selected Solo Shows include: Role Play, Meredith Rosen Gallery NY, 2018; Pretzel Twist, The Breeder, Athens, 2017; Obscene Creatures, Resilient Terrains Assembly Point, London, UK, 2017. Selected Group shows include: Athens Biennial, 2018; Still Human at the Rubell Family Collection Miami, FL; Nature of Justice, St. Anne's Warehouse, Brooklyn NY; Hyper Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Venice, IT, 2017; Unreal, NRW Forum, Düsseldorf, DE. 2017; International Topsellers – Human Product, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Wien, AT 2017; LA times 10, Architecture and Design Museum, LA, CA, 2017;After Belonging, Oslo Architecture Triennale, Oslo, NO. 2016; and Game Art Festival, Hammer Museum, LA, CA, 2015.

The World on a Wire exhibition is available online: https://worldonawire.net.

Rhizome champions born-digital art and culture through artist-centered programs that commission, present, and preserve art made with and through digital networks and tools. Online since 1996, the organization is an affiliate of the iconic New Museum in New York City. For more information, visit rhizome.org.