New publications by and about Peter Weibel

As a curator, teacher, theorist and media artist, Peter Weibel (1944-2023) had a lasting influence on European art discourse. A comprehensive posthumous exhibition of his artistic work and the sixth and final volume of his Encyclopaedia of Media have now been published. We present the books.

The publication »Peter Weibel: Art as an Act of Cognition« is based on the exhibition »respektive. Peter Weibel«, which was shown at the ZKM (2019-2020) and the MMCA Seoul/Korea (2023). In English, the book provides the first comprehensive overview of Weibel's diverse artistic practice over the past sixty years. The editors are long-standing collaborators of Peter Weibel, who developed the structure of the publication together with him. In addition to the work illustrations, the publication contains 35 videos in which Peter Weibel himself has his say; these can be accessed via QR codes; as well as essays and contributions by Hans Belting, Bazon Brock, Boris Groys, Wolfgang Kemp, Friederike Mayröcker, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Pamela C. Scorzin, Peter Sloterdijk, Terry Smith, Siegfried Zielinski and Peter Weibel himself.

In his Encyclopaedia of the Media, Peter Weibel has recorded his comprehensive thinking on the media world in six volumes. The encyclopedia has long since achieved the status of a central reference work. Now the sixth and final volume, »Encyclopaedia of the Media 6: Theory and Media« (original: »Enzyklopädie der Medien 6: Theorie und Medien«), has been published posthumously. In it, Weibel 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 analyzing virtual worlds and images through to art in the age of artificial intelligence. In particular, they emphasize the social relevance of media art and its potential to enable an emancipated approach to digitalization in the 21st century.