A Base Camp for New Alliances of Art and Media in the 21st Century
March 25, 2023–January 7, 2024
The research and exhibition project Renaissance 3.0. A Base Camp for New Alliances of Art and Science in the 21st Century traces an arc from the Arab and Italian Renaissance to the media art of the twenty-first century with a reference to a third Renaissance in art.
The scientification of art was already a core tenet of the Renaissance, but its importance has faded over the centuries. Art was primarily oriented towards things that can be grasped with the natural eye, while science has been using instruments since the 16th century to reach previously inaccessible res invisibiles of the microcosm and the macrocosm. Now, in the digital twenty-first century, a shift is taking place. Artists are increasingly working with the same tools, methods and programs as science. This common pool of tools points to the beginning of a third Renaissance.
The emergence of a new culture of tools in the twenty-first century is illustrated in the center of the exhibition space: An interactive Wissensfeld (knowledge base) allows visitors to physically select concepts in space to access the corresponding explanations. The artistic Wissensfeld is devised as an experimental collaboration between humans and machines, in which human and machine learning are interacting.
With more than 35 international media art positions, Renaissance 3.0 provides insights into artistic laboratory situations and artistic-scientific collaborations. In doing so, the exhibition creates a space for a new culture of tools and a multidisciplinary field of knowledge for the twenty-first century—from biochemistry to genetic engineering and information design to neuroscience and unconventional computing.
As part of the base camp idea, all guests are invited to participate in the physical and digital outreach program.
The Tool_Lab in the exhibition space offers a platform to everyone to exchange, experiment and (re)imagine tools for the future.
The ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe mourns the death of Peter Weibel, who passed away on March 1, 2023, after a short serious illness. Until the end, he worked intensively on his exhibition and research project, Renaissance 3.0. To mark the opening of the exhibition, Peter Weibel invited internationally renowned scientists and Nobel Prize winners from disciplines such as quantum physics, biochemistry, medicine and art history for a two-day symposium at the ZKM | Karlsruhe to stake out possible alliances of art and science for the twenty-first century together. This symposium will be hosted in his honor.
Please click here for further information.
Artists
Louis Bec, Otto / Oskar Beckmann, Michael Bielicky / Kamila B. Richter, Hubert Blanz, Jonathan Borofsky, Tega Brain, James Bridle, Daniel Canogar, Lutz Dammbeck, Agnes Denes, Anna Dumitriu / Alex May, Thomas Feuerstein, Holger Förterer, Julie Freeman, Christoph Girardet, Barbara Hammer, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Ivan Henriques, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Jan van IJken / Jana Winderen, Interspecifics, Manfred Kage, Jens Kull, Armin Linke, Bernd Lintermann, Christian Losert / Daniel Dalfovo, Ana Mendieta, Dorcas Müller, Pasi Orrensalo, Paul Panhuysen, Constanza Piña Pardo, Helen Pynor, robotlab, Tomás Saraceno, Sivu, Nina Sobel, Saša Spačal, ::vtol::, Götz Dipper / Peter Weibel, Michel Winterberg, Liang Zhipeng
Curated by
Peter Weibel, Anett Holzheid with Sarah Donderer, Nina Liechti, Beatrice Zaidenberg
Opening program
Friday, March 24, 7pm CET
Symposium on the exhibition Renaissance 3.0
Saturday, March 25–Sunday, March 26, 2023
The complete program is available here.
The symposium will be held in German at ZKM.
Free of charge and open to the public.
Online broadcast at zkm.de/en/livestream
Also at the ZKM: “The Next Renaissance” by the EU Platform EIT Culture & Creativity
Friday, March 24–Saturday, March 25, 2023
The European platform of the EIT Culture & Creativity develops perspectives of radical change. The symposium with participants from all across Europe also features a workshop and an interactive presentation by the Catalan Fundación Épica La Fura dels Baus.
Please find further information on “The Next Renaissance” here.
