National Galleries Scotland: PortraitNew Town
Wendy McMurdo: The Digital Mirror
This exhibition has ended.
Over 50 photographs and digital animations (1995-2018) by Wendy McMurdo on childhood, learning and computers, including never-before-seen work. Her biggest show to date.
Museum websiteMore in Edinburgh
In Computer Class (1997), primary school children sit with their hands poised over a keyboard that isn't there. McMurdo photographed the classrooms, then digitally removed the computers, leaving only the children's attention. In 2015 she did it again with Algorithmic Children: kids sprawled on the floor, holding invisible iPads.
This is her largest show to date, over 50 photographs and animations from 1995 to 2018, some never shown before. You also meet what fed the work: early 20th-century toys, a Paolozzi sculpture, and Raeburn's Skating Minister, which together with a 2008 Wii game sparked her photos of Dundee skaters who modelled for Nintendo. If you spent 2008 flailing at Wii skating, these are the people you were pretending to be.
The Scotsman gave it four stars, with one catch: the newest work is from 2017, and the field moves faster than the show. Entry is free, the audio tour (with McMurdo's own reflections) is free too, and it closes on 25 October.
Look for
Computer Class
Look for pupils at their desks, hands hovering over a keyboard, with the bulky 1997 desktop computer digitally erased from the picture.
Avatar (i)
A Dundee figure skater is lifted high on her partner's shoulders, and the partner has been digitally removed, so she floats on nothing.
The Somnambulist
Two identical sleepwalking children pass each other going in opposite directions, from 1995, the earliest year in the show.
The ghost in a New Town doorway
A little girl dressed as a ghost hovers in an Edinburgh New Town doorway, which the Scotsman called the eeriness of childhood in one frame.
Indeterminate Objects (Classrooms)
In this 2017 animation, the newest work here, abstract 3D shapes float above a classroom table like algorithms given form.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Rainy Days
- Teenagers
Skip if
You want art about today's AI and phones: the newest work here dates from 2017.
With kids
Over the October holiday (12 to 16 October, 2 to 4pm) a free drop-in session has kids drawing, making collages and imaginative self-portraits inspired by McMurdo, no booking. The gallery has a buggy park and baby changing.
Also at National Galleries Scotland: Portrait
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
8
- Ade Adesina: BardAde Adesina, 'Borders', 2025. Photo: Neil Corall
- Gifted: New Acquisitions at the City Art CentreJessie M. King, Fraunchyse (detail), c.1907. City of Edinburgh Museums & Galleries (Photo: Fine Art Society)
- Elizabeth Blackadder: A Life in ColourCourtesy of Dovecot Studios
- National Galleries Scotland: PortraitKenneth C. Zirkel, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
- FruitmarketStefan Schäfer, Lich / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- National Galleries Scotland: NationalM J Richardson / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
- City Art CentreMacfack / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Stills: Centre for PhotographyKirsty S. Ross / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0