Online Exhibition Launch | Remember Tomorrow: A Telidon Story
Friday, April 25, 2025 | 6 – 8PM
In person at The Centre for Culture and Technology (CCT) at University of Toronto (39A Queen's Park Cres E)
FREE, register here
Canada’s earliest born-digital artworks were long thought lost to contemporary audiences until they were recovered by a cross-country team of digital art archaeologists. On Friday, April 25, 2025, these artworks, made using the little-known Canadian technology Telidon, can be viewed as part of the online exhibition Remember Tomorrow: A Telidon Story. The exhibition was developed with funding from the Digital Museums Canada investment program and design leadership from Toronto-based agency, Tennis.
To mark its launch, InterAccess is hosting a reception with the support of The Centre for Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto. The event will include a conversation hosted by Remember Tomorrow curator, Shauna Jean Doherty, with Centre for Culture and Technology Director, Scott C. Richmond, and Art & Technology Coordinator, Matt Nish-Lapidus, on the significance of Telidon on the wider telecommunications sector in Canada, with a screening of video interviews included in the online exhibition featuring artists, Douglas Porter, Nell Tenhaaf, and Paul Petro as well as librarian and Telidon art restorer John Durno.
The online exhibition will be accessible in English and French via the url www.remembertomorrow.ca from April 24, 2025 to April 24, 2030.
More about Telidon technology
Telidon was a networked telecommunications computer graphic system developed by the Canadian government in the late 1970s that presaged what we know today as the internet. From 1981 to 1987, Canadian artists harnessed Telidon as a ground-breaking experimental medium and pushed the borders of its technical, educational, and artistic potential. Thought to have a lifespan of only 20 years, the 35 to 40 year old Telidon discs and videotapes housing these works have been recovered in an effort led by John Durno, Head of Library Systems, University of Victoria.
About Digital Museums Canada
The Digital Museums Canada investment program helps build digital capacity in Canadian museums and heritage organizations and gives Canadians unique access to diverse stories and experiences. Digital Museums Canada is managed by the Canadian Museum of History, with the financial support of the Government of Canada.
Image: Butterfly (circa 1983) by Don Lindsay.