The Raverse90 Collective

The RAVERSE90 Collective brings together a generation of pioneering digital artists whose works were created during the emergence of electronic music and rave culture in Europe throughout the 1990s. The collection traces its origins to a unique body of digital artworks produced using the first multimedia computers, early graphic software and analogue machines that have since disappeared. Created between the rise of techno culture and the birth of digital creativity, these works capture a formative moment in the history of both electronic art and underground culture. At the time, however, neither was widely recognised. Throughout the early 1990s, techno and rave culture were heavily stigmatised. Mainstream media portrayed raves as a social threat, cultural institutions dismissed the movement as lacking artistic value, and the traditional art market had little interest in digital works. Much of this creative output therefore remained outside established archives and institutions. Rather than disappearing, the artworks were preserved by the artist Machac, who safeguarded the original files on magnetic tapes for almost thirty years. He later contacted each of the original creators to seek their permission to release the works publicly. With the artists' agreement, he reunited them under the RAVERSE90 Collective and minted the collection on the blockchain in 2022, marking its Genesis Drop. A second release, the Black & White Drop, followed in 2025, with works from the series still available today.

The collection extends beyond the artworks themselves. Between 1993 and 1997, an underground film crew documented rave parties and the emergence of digital art across Europe, capturing the creativity, experimentation and energy of a generation working outside the cultural mainstream. Preserved for three decades, these archives provide an exceptionally rare record of a movement that was largely ignored by official institutions at the time. Today, the RAVERSE90 Collective stands as both an artistic archive and a historical document. The collection preserves works that might otherwise have been lost while recognising an overlooked generation of digital pioneers whose practice anticipated many of the artistic and technological developments that define contemporary digital art. Since its release, the collection has been exhibited across France in installations conceived by Machac. Recovering obsolete monitors and computer hardware destined for disposal, he transforms these forgotten technologies into sculptural displays for the artworks, allowing the collection to be experienced on machines that echo its original context. In doing so, the preservation of the artworks is mirrored by the preservation of the technological objects that once made them possible. In 2026, the collection was introduced to UK audiences through its first London exhibition, curated by Neo Art Discovery.