Conversations on Art and Media: Unconventional Computing

In this talk, Ralf Baecker (HfK Bremen / Berlin) explores alternative modes of computing, control, and communication through the lens of his artistic practice and research. Journeying through string machines, artificial neural networks, emergent systems, and fluid metal machines, Baecker delves into the material and conceptual layers of the digital. From revealing the hidden infrastructures of technology to investigating notions of material intelligence, the lecture unfolds as a meditation on performative complexity and the poetics of computation.

»Conversations on Art and Media« is a new lecture series with invited guests from the expanded fields of media art and theory, co-organized by members of HfG Karlsruhe and ZKM. During summer semester 2025, the series discusses unconventional conceptions and materializations of computers as well as alternative ways of dealing with them. In the light of the quasi-monopoly of big tech companies and in view of powerful presets and standards, guest lectures and conversations will address the questions: To what extent can computers look or function differently? In which ways can we reflect on, perceive or handle computing devices differently or change them?

Further dates, Summer Semester 2025

19.6. 6 pm, HfG, Andrew Adamatzky (UWE Bristol): Computing with Unusual Substrates

26.6. 8 pm, HfG Lichtbrücke, Benoit Baudry (KTH Stockholm): Software Diversity

03.07. 6 pm, HfG, Lichtbrücke, Joana Moll, Tatiana Bazzichelli (Disruption Network Lab)

17.7. ZKM, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley (Berlin): Concert