This study analyzes the exhibition Les Immatériaux, held at the Pompidou Center in 1985, and the recent exhibition Immaterial/Re-material: A Brief History of Computing Art (2020-2021), dealing with immaterial and material art. The study explores whether we can interpret rematerialized art beyond the usual distinction of material vs. immaterial, but rather in terms of a new material transformation. Les Immatériaux tried not only to recognize the new materiality, like telecommunication technology, but also to understand the relationship between humans and their desire to become masters of material in order to prove that a material originates from an immaterial. The later exhibition Immaterial/Re-material: A Brief History of Computing Art adopted the word “re-material” to describe the process of expressing the “immaterial” in order to interpret the origin of what exists in material form in visual art through immaterial information. In order to make a more in-depth analysis of this (im)materiality, this paper analyzes the work of Casey Reas (b. 1972) to explore how the immateriality used in computing art is rematerialized into material form.

material, immaterial, rematerialization, Casey Reas, Processing, software art