iMAL, the Brussels center for digital culture, is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a remarkable exhibition

From 1 July to 21 September 2025, iMAL presents I am vertical (but I would rather be horizontal), an exhibition that reflects on iMAL’s 25-year history while looking ahead to the future of digital cultures.

More than a retrospective, this ‘introspective’ exhibition brings together artworks previously shown at iMAL with more recent creations. 12 artists — 3 of whom live and work in Belgium — ​ invite us to pause and reconsider the value of past, present, and future digital art—especially at a time when technology is increasingly scrutinised for its environmental and social impact.

The exhibition takes its title from Sylvia Plath’s poem I am vertical, in which the poet contemplates her own existence by expressing a desire to be horizontal—symbolising a deeper connection with nature and a break from vertical ambition.

Today, digital culture is linked to the production of e-waste and the growing consumption of land, energy, water, and resources. ​ What does this mean for artists working with digital media?

The works in I am vertical (but I would rather be horizontal) offer a space to reflect on digital cultures that do not pursue endless growth at the expense of nature, but instead embrace limits as a path to reclaim creativity and responsibility.

For example, artist Sunjoo Lee envisions a garden that generates electricity through living soil and microbial activity; Refonte by Quentin Destieu and Sylvain Huguet (Collectif Dardex) transforms electronic waste into primitive tools; Jonah Brucker-Cohen’s Alerting Infrastructure! explores the tangible consequences of online activity on the physical world; and Harmonie by Val Macé is a playful musical device made from abandoned objects, serving as a narrative support for a short, quirky tale about appetite.

I am vertical (but I would rather be horizontal)
​01 July - 21 September 2025
​iMAL Art Center for Digital Cultures & Technology, Brussels

Press conference: 1 July, 11am
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​​https://www.imal.org/en

Download the full press kit here:

Participating Artists:

Selection of images

Cecile Babiole GOBO GOBO HEY ! (2)Jonah Brucker Cohen Alerting Infrastructure!

Cecile Babiole GOBO GOBO HEY !Leonard Leyens La BrèChe

Navid Navab Organism + Excitable Chaos

Cecile Babiole GOBO GOBO HEY ! (3)

Peter Beyls Oeuvre

Navid Navab Organism + Excitable Chaos (1)

Claire Williams Psychic Radio

Raquel Meyers Follow The Red DotsQuentin Destieu, Sylvain Huguet (Collectif Dardex) Refonte

Suzanne Treister Hexen 2 0 (Tarot) (1)Suzanne Treister Hexen 2 0 (Tarot) (3)Suzanne Treister Hexen 2 0 (Tarot) (2)

Suzanne Treister Hexen 2 0 (Tarot)Sunjoo Lee Electric Garden (1)

Val Macé HarmonieClaire Williams Psychic Radio 2

Sunjoo Lee Electric Garden

25 years of iMAL

Since its creation, iMAL has been a pioneering space at the crossroads of the arts and technology. A place for artistic exploration, experimentation and reflection on technologies and their impact on society. 

On the occasion of its 25th anniversary, iMAL is engaging in a broader reflection on resilience and resistance to the Big Tech monoculture and its dominant definition of progress.

In the face of the climate emergency, the depletion of resources and the collapse of political and economic ideologies, iMAL is reasserting itself as a place for questioning the narratives that shape technology. 

How can we rethink our relationship with technology at a time when it is shaping our lives far beyond our control? What if slowing down became the most radical innovation? ​ How can we reinvent artistic and cultural models that value sobriety, resilience and mutual aid? 

This 25th anniversary is a celebration of the past, but also a renewed commitment to a present/future in which artistic experimentation contributes to the construction of new, diverse visions of the world.

In the coming years, iMAL will focus in particular on two major programmatic lines. The first aims to challenge our digital practices in the light of ecological ethics. The second will address the impact of technology on labour, with a particular focus on automation and increased precarity.

These programmatic lines will lay the foundations on which, in the upcoming years, we will tackle other crucial issues, such as power structures and the transformative role of artivism in contemporary society, with particular attention to the practice of young artists.