ZKM-Direktor Peter Weibel
Monopol, Magazin für Kunst und Leben
The Corona pandemic has driven art into the digital realm – curator Peter Weibel was already there. Here the ZKM director explains why virtual events dominate reality – and why proximity in the museum is a fiction that is now coming to an end.
Mr Weibel, you curate the Karlsruhe Schlosslichtspiele, among others. How do reality and digital art interact?
The castle light show is a highly technical event. With “Projection Mapping”, images are not simply projected onto a cinema screen. Instead, each group of artists receives a computer-based 3D model of the castle and is then commissioned to incorporate the architecture of the facade into the images. This means that every pixel of the façade becomes part of a composition and is transformed by it. The façade moves, it can collapse or become a waterfall with water coming out of the windows. Through a projected fantasy world one can let the real one sink, so to speak. In the case of the castle light games, one can already see a dominance of the virtual, but the real façade still needs this as a carrier medium.