English version

I have long pondered the paradox of Icelandic art: In a society that is one of the most technologically advanced in the world, why is our visual art so tangible, so earth-bound? Why is there such a silence around digital art?

Perhaps the answer lies in the land itself. Perhaps the reason is that Iceland has always had its own, overwhelming digital world. The landscape is the original high-resolution display. The aurora is the most perfect example of generative art. The sagas are the source code from which everything is written. Next to this hyper-reality, the computer screen feels small, almost redundant.

Our art has therefore, rightly, wrestled with the tangible: with the weight of stone, the warmth of wool, with the paint that tries to capture an impossible light.

But what of the inner landscape? What of the worlds not visible to the naked eye—the world of philosophy, of the subconscious, and of the complex systems that lie behind the myths?

It is there that digital art finds its true purpose. It is not an attempt to replicate the glacier or the fjord. It is the tool for mapping the mind. It is the canvas for worlds that exist only as pure idea.

Digital art is not an escape from Icelandic reality. It is a journey into its source code.


– Refur Geirdal