17 June – 17 July 2021
Computer History Museum Slovenia, Celovška 111, Ljubljana
Opening Hours:
- Tuesday to Friday: 4 PM – 8 PM
- Saturdays: 10 AM – 2 PM
Summer Museum Night, Saturday 19 June
- Special Opening Hours: 4 PM – 8 PM
- Performative tour of the VR landscape S.E.N.S. VR: 7 PM
France, a country renowned for its innovations in the comic book industry, stands out on the international stage with its creative dynamism and high-quality production. French writers, artists, publishers, and producers are increasingly turning to new technologies to create original works. The Digital Comics exhibition presents 15 contemporary works through a participatory and unique experience that blurs the boundaries between comics and digital arts. Organized by the French Institute, with selected works from the Machines à Bulles collection, the exhibition invites visitors to explore a new reading experience, which perfectly represents the richness and exceptional nature of French creativity.
Computer History Museum Slovenia complements this exhibition by looking at the role of comics in early Slovenian computer magazines and the communicative power of mass-market comics in the era of niche social networks.
During the exhibition, visitors can explore interactive comics and transcend the traditional separation between viewer and co-creator. Digital technology erases the boundaries between disciplines and establishes a new relationship between creators and readers. New narrative forms and modes of reading reveal new creative perspectives and change our relationship with books, printed media, and digital “machines.” From pictures to pixels, comic creators are continuously experimenting with new expressive forms, playing with the codes of sequential storytelling across all genres—from fiction to documentary, detective stories to science fiction.
You may also indulge in a unique space for humorous expressions of wonder at new technologies and the frustrations they introduced into daily life, through which generations of early digital adopters vented their experiences.
Thanks to the unexpected rise of Slovenian computer magazines in the 1990s, the cult comic Mat & Fotr & Mulc & PC by Dušan Kastelic was born. This series, which started in 1995 in the last pages of the magazine PC & Media, became iconic due to its regular doses of eight-panel comic strips about a dysfunctional family, whose chaos intensifies with the arrival of a new family member: a computer. This recurring comic strip led readers to develop a habit of reading the magazine from the back, eagerly anticipating this cathartic moment.
When social networks emerged after 2005, predecessors like Geocities slowly faded, replaced by a Cambrian explosion of niche social networks, and in 2007, Stripgenerator.com was born.
With its minimalist black-and-white graphics and a simple interface for creating and sharing original comics, Slovenian Stripgenerator by Žiga Aljaž and 3fs quickly attracted over 100,000 users worldwide, generating more than 1 million comics, enabling members to communicate, rate, and comment on each other’s works.
This exhibition is organized by Computer History Museum Slovenia and the French Institute in Slovenia as part of the Digital November program and the Year of Comics in France (2020-2021).