BitStreams at the Whitney Museum, New York

“Nothing since the invention of photography has had a greater impact on artistic practice than the emergence of digital technologies,” begins the Whitney Museum’s description of BitStreams, a startling admission from a major art museum. As the Internet reinvigorated interest in technology and art, BitStreams was tied together through a common use of software. This exhibition would profoundly impact recent graduate Zach Lieberman, who in 2005 would go on to release openFrameworks, software similar to Processing but C++ based.

Lieberman shared with me about the impact of this exhibition on his practice: “For me, personally, the BitStreams exhibition at the Whitney in 2001 was especially meaningful. I was a student when I went to the Whitney Museum and I saw Jason Salavon’s artwork; I heard Yasunao Tone’s “Solo for Wounded CD.” I was a student and I put on these headphones. Here’s this artist making glitch music, basically breaking CDs and I was thinking, “Woah, what is this? It’s wild.”