What if the virtual were not a copy of reality, but another way of inhabiting it?
What does it mean to be human in an expanded world?
The exhibition Expanded World. Between the Physical and the Virtual explores the boundaries between physical reality and digital simulation, delving into the effects that the proliferation of virtual worlds is having on our lives.
Through 80 works, ranging from historical objects from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to immersive installations, video games, augmented reality applications, and reflections on the metaverse by a range of national and international artists, the exhibition examines the human impulse to inhabit simulated worlds. At the same time, it invites visitors to reflect on the current relationship between physical reality and virtual worlds, as well as on their ethical, philosophical, legal, social, and economic implications.
Globalization, hyper-surveillance, inequality, digital identities, and codes of conduct within virtual communities are among the highly topical themes addressed in an exhibition that focuses on a society inhabiting the space between the real and the virtual. It does so through historical and artistic works by creators from around the world, including Marc Lee, Cao Fei, Solimán López, Eva and Franco Mattes, Theo Triantafyllidis, Angela Washko, Sabrina Ratté, Seonghoon Ban, Johanna Jaskowska, and Ines Alpha—among others—alongside the British creative studio ScanLAB Projects and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.
A Hybrid Reality
Thirty years after the emergence of the internet, the term cyberspace appears to have become obsolete, unable to reflect the omnipresence of the virtual in everyday life.
Beyond physical spaces, society inhabits digital environments that shape—and even condition—our reality, with boundaries that grow increasingly diffuse each day. These spaces allow us to remain interconnected while, at the same time, transforming the ways in which humanity relates, socializes, consumes, works, and learns.
With new, increasingly immersive forms of digital experience, it seems for the first time in human history that the impulse to generate simulated worlds has culminated in the possibility of abandoning our natural environment and living immersed in a different one.
This exhibition explores the antecedents of this world, examines the current relationship between physical reality and virtual reality, and reflects on some of its implications at every level: ethical and philosophical, legal, social, and economic.
Madrid, Lima and Santiago de Compostela
Expanded World is a project by Fundación Telefónica, which was originally presented at its headquarters in Madrid between November 2023 and May 2024, before touring to Peru, where it was shown at the Museo de Arte de Lima (MALI) between June and November 2024. Its presentation at the Museo Centro Gaiás of the Cidade da Cultura represents the first time this exhibition has toured within Spain.
Expanded Worlds during its exhibition at Cidade da Cultura
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