“And Praxis” will bring together more than thirty international pioneers and present a work by Paul Sermon connecting participants in ten countries in real time.
On 22 October, NEWART Foundation will open “And Praxis. The pioneering generation of new media art” at NEWART Centre in Reus. The exhibition will bring together works by more than thirty international figures involved in the development of new media art.
And Praxis will bring to Reus one of the leading international archives dedicated to the history of new media art, associated with a generation of artists who helped develop many of the concepts, practices and languages that define contemporary digital art today.
The opening day will also feature two particularly distinctive elements. “Homo Telematicus”, by Paul Sermon, will connect participants in ten countries in real time, with Reus as one of the experience’s physical nodes. The exhibition will also introduce the first perfume in history created specifically for robots.
The artists brought together in And Praxis do more than incorporate new technologies into their work: they help define new ways of understanding the relationship between art, science and technology. Telematic art, interactive art, artificial life, bioart, generative art, virtual reality and social robotics are among the disciplines in which they have developed pioneering practices.
And Praxis is also dedicated to the memory of Vicente Matallana, who died in July 2026 and was one of the project’s driving forces alongside Paul Thomas and Jaime de los Ríos.
An exhibition without a curator
One distinctive feature of And Praxis is that the exhibition has no curator. Under the motto “Non-Curated but Worked with Love”, the artists themselves have decided how they wish to be represented and remembered. Each has selected a work that encapsulates the essence of their practice, in some cases remastered for the occasion, on the condition that it can operate in a plug-and-play format and travel through the cloud.
The project takes on the challenge of turning an archive into an exhibition experience through a large, immersive environment of screens. The works will coexist to create a collective layer of image and sound, while the installation will also allow visitors to approach each one individually.
The proposal goes beyond a conventional exhibition and is conceived as a living archive for identifying, documenting and studying the works, and establishing mechanisms for their future preservation and reactivation. This task is particularly important in the face of technological obsolescence, as many of these creations depend on machines, software and formats that disappear or become incompatible.
Jaime de los Ríos, artistic and technical director of NEWART Foundation, explains: “With And Praxis, we do not want simply to exhibit a selection of works, but to build a living archive that preserves and helps us understand the legacy of a generation fundamental to the history of new media art.” He adds: “Documenting them, studying them and finding ways to reactivate them in the future is essential if this part of art history is not to be lost.”
Paul Thomas, the driving force behind And Praxis and editor of “The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of New Media Art, Volume II: Artists and Practice”, highlights the importance of preserving the legacy and network of artists who helped build the history of new media art: “This exhibition is contextualised from the perspective of a digital media artist, aiming to explore innovative new ways of exhibiting and archiving artworks by presenting artists’ self-curated practices in specific contexts. The compendium of works spans different periods in each artist’s development and reflects their passion, career and fundamental creative aims.”
And Praxis addresses an important gap in the history of new media art, offering first-hand accounts from the artists themselves of the interactions and intentions behind their practice. This pioneering compendium exhibition at NEWART Centre draws on the artist chapters in the “Encyclopedia of New Media Art” and offers a unique view of the utopian promise of cyberspace that, for a fleeting moment, became reality.
Reus, connected in real time with ten countries
A central feature of the opening day will be “Homo Telematicus”, a telematic performance by Paul Sermon. The work will turn NEWART Centre in Reus into one of the physical nodes of an experience simultaneously bringing together people in ten countries across different continents.
Participants, physically separated by thousands of kilometres, will interact within the same audiovisual environment. The piece will thus emerge from distributed participation, telepresence and interaction between people around the world.
The programme on 22 October will begin at 16:30 with the “Conservant els Pioners” symposium and telematic performance. The symposium will be presented by Pau Alsina, PhD and Associate Professor of Arts and Humanities at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). The official opening of And Praxis at NEWART Centre will take place at 19:00, with free admission on opening day, subject to capacity.
Although advance registration is not required, we would appreciate confirmation of your attendance by email so that we can estimate the number of visitors and better prepare the day.
The first perfume in history created for robots
Among the works to discover at And Praxis is the first perfume in history created specifically for robots. The piece opens a new avenue for reflection on the relationship between machines and perception.
The final list of artists in And Praxis comprises Bill Seaman, Catherine Elwes, Chris Speed, Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau, Christopher Henschke, Claudia Hart, Donna Cox, Ernest Edmonds, Frederik de Wilde, George Legrady, Gina Czarnecki, Jane Grant, Jane Prophet, Jeffrey Shaw, Jill Scott, Jon McCormack, Kurt Hentschläger, Laura Beloff, Mari Velonaki, Mark Cypher, Mike Phillips, Olga Kisseleva, Paul Brown, Paul Sermon, Paul Thomas, Rachel Clarke, Sally Jane Norman, Simon Biggs, Stanza, Stelarc, Susan Collins, Teresa Wennberg, Victoria Vesna, Wolfgang Strauß & Monika Fleischmann and William Latham.
