Digital Archaeologist Jim Boulton is on a mission to archive and preserve the early days of the web. It is one that has taken him to the Barbican, Internet Week New York and beyond over the past seven years. For 64 Bits, his latest exhibition at Here East, he wanted to showcase 32 pioneering websites on the hardware and the software of the time, together with 32 pieces of artwork.
He asked Soul Labels an art agency I founded to contribute in a number of areas, particularly when paying tribute to the unsung heroes of digital culture. Entrepreneurs like Zuckerberg are household names but what about the artists, designers and engineers making breakthroughs behind the scenes?
We curated a gallery of nine influential yet underappreciated innovators such as Alan Emtage (who invented the first search engine), Shigetaka Kurita (the father of the emoji) and Dr Shirley Jackson (without whom we might not have solar cells and fiber optic cables).
To reconfigure their portraits, we called on a number of rising stars from the art world, each with their own unique style: Imani Kahlo, Raman Aso, Chizi and Rahoul Drewitt. It felt right to have BAME (black and minority ethnic) artists celebrating BAME innovators through their work.
