As Above, So Below: Magic in the Digital Age

Accent Sisters presents “As Above, So Below: Magic in the Digital Age,” a group exhibition curated by Arete Xu exploring occultism, magic and digital art.

Something about the way we relate to technology feels supernatural. It delivers absolute truth; it haunts us; we trust it to know our minds and our souls with utmost faithfulness. But how does this entity make us feel? Think back to the ‘original’ understanding of the supernatural we had as children. Magic. From witches, fairies, perhaps even magical ponies on TV, we’ve since graduated to astrology hyperfixations, occult meme cosmology and internet mythologies. Whatever the interpretation, Magic usurps “the truth”, and it’s a tool we’ve always had. Considering how these truths and inevitabilities are fed to us, ever more relentlessly hidden under the guise of technocracy, can the occult be our tool to dismantle them? To create disbelief?

“As Above, So Below” seeks practitioners of digital magic: people who imagine new realities that serve us, in alternative, wayward ways. The exhibition invites artworks that enchant or curse our use of technology — works that take authoritative narratives of truth and behead them with testimony, hearsays, rumours and manifestations born of raw humanity.