Curated by Graham Smith

The story of Pandora is one of curiosity and risk, of choice and unforeseen consequences. The Pandora’s Box exhibition uses this familiar tale to explore some of its obvious parallels to our contemporary encounter with technology.

Using a high-speed broadband Internet link, gallery visitors at InterAccess transport themselves into a remote installation – 10,000 kilometres away at the Royal College of Art in Stockholm – and observe it through the video eye of a small robot. They direct the robot and drive it through the piece, exploring the ways in which virtual presence transforms scale and perspective.

To fully explore the space of the remote locale, the robot-operator must open the box and cross the threshold into each artist’s world. These small-scale environments – designed by six of Canada and Sweden’s most talented and accomplished artists working in electronic art – are autonomous worlds, their contents unknown until they are entered.

The interface design of Pandora’s Box not only provides access to a far-away place — it also draws attention to the way in which interactive artwork routinely subverts the notion that the experience of art is a private affair. By highlighting the collective experience of interactivity, Pandora’s Box transforms what is conventionally seen as a mute space for viewing into a conceptually articulate social environment.

Exhibition design by Amanda Ramos.

Click here to view an archive of the original Pandora's Box exhibition website.

Pandora’s Box is part of the InterAccess and Fylkingen Canada-Sweden Electronic Art Exchange.