Helga Nowotny

Turning Online into Offline
Helga Nowotny, on the series Offline, 2025

A first impression when viewing the images of Offline is that of a world without color. A dark background dominates, partly haunting and partly teasing. It ­asserts that the world is black and white. ­Seemingly ­familiar landscapes appear; with mountains, craters and a ­mysterious lake; fire emits sparks in the dark and a barely lit road curves into the unknown; caves lie above and below ground, some adorned with paintings, others are warehouses. There are landscapes with trees and snow and seascapes with islands on the horizon. Yet, what seems familiar emits an uncanny sense of being out of place and it takes a while to ­re-orient oneself. The irritation originates from the format. While the contours around the pictures are clearly ­demarcated, neither framing nor size conform to expectations. ­Slowly, it dawns on the viewer that these are the ­hand-held objects that have become part of our ­digital everyday life – tablets. 

Contrary to their ­usual ­appearance, they are deprived of all ­electronic ­connections and devoid of digital ­content, they are defunct, dead material, and yet, here they are, ­communicating with us in novel ways. Not only that, they have been rescued from their preassigned fate to land on an electronic scrapheap or in one of those ­immense electronic wasteyards ­somewhere in Africa where children scramble to find ­reusable ­residues. They have been repurposed, saved by the ­artist to be given a new life and to be transformed into Offline art. Rather than lightly touching the screen to import the preprogrammed digital content which has been designed to make our life more convenient or to manipulate us, the haptic gesture of the artist has distributed white paint on the black surface, creating new forms. ­Instead of ­getting drawn into viewing ephemeral texts, ­pictures and advertisements, designed to entertain, nudge or ­misinform, we are invited to enter a world we may have lost, but it could also be a world waiting to be ­discovered anew. 

This is the evocative power of art: it transforms how we engage with reality and opens an imaginary space of seeing, remembering and creating. Now, the touch::screen covered with white paint claims permanence instead of waiting to be permanently switched between On and Off. The tablet, and its previous function, have been liberated. No longer does the swift movement of the finger act as a prompt to deliver ­instantaneously an ­incoming ­digital menu. Now we have been invited to move ­freely with our eyes and bodies back and forth in the space opened for our imagination. 

Art seduces us to ask new questions. Its engagement with the digital technologies that shape our lives and our relationship with the natural Umwelt, becomes a crucial gateway for the future. The defunct tablet has acquired a novel existence as a medium of communicating with us. We can enter a world that we recognize from the past, but the haunting scenes exhort us to reflect on an ­uncertain future that is about to take shape. Art has turned online into Offline. It is a world which seems vaguely familiar, but keeping it in black and white, partly haunting and partly teasing, creates a space in which to ask ourselves who we are and where we are going. We have entered the space of being-in-between, between Online and Offline.


Helga Nowotny is an internationally recognized Science and Technology Studies, STS, researcher and ­professor emerita at ETH Zurich. She was a founding member, Vice-President and from 2010 to 2013 President of the European Research Council, ERC, which was ­established in 2007. Among others, she is currently Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Complexity Science Hub and a member of the Council for Research, Science, ­Innovation and Technology Development. Throughout her academic career she was actively involved in research and innovation policy at national and international ­level and remains, to this day, an active participant at the forefront of the global debate on the ­importance of basic research, innovation and the relationship ­between science and society.