Enzyklopädie der Medien, Band 6: Theorie und Medien

In his pioneering texts on media and art theory, the artist, curator and theorist Peter Weibel, who died in 2023, explores the question of how the media (arts) constitute, simulate and change the world and our perception. Based on system-theoretical considerations, he outlines the media arts as a place of reflection on our access to the world. His essays provide tools for analysing virtual worlds and images through to art in the age of artificial intelligence.

Weibel also traces the alliance between art and science and shows how this gives rise to new knowledge systems. This volume contains fundamental texts on artistic research, the transcending of the human being in the sense of transhumanism, "exo-evolution", the "electrosphere", and the "infosphere" as well as a "Renaissance 3.0".

In terms of art theory, Peter Weibel used the term "context art" to describe the social construction of art. His theory of multiple modernity shows how representation has not only been replaced by abstraction, but also by real actions and real objects as well as a new tool culture, an absolutisation of the elements of painting and material painting.

Weibel’s texts, some of which are prophetic, reveal the social relevance of media art and its epistemic potential. Art and its institutions therefore also have an educational role to play in enabling an emancipated approach to digitalisation in the 21^st century.

University of Applied Arts Vienna