[ISEA2023] Artist Statement: Peter Weibel — Possible

Artist Statement

Fusion of the Possible, Topographie de l’art, April 15 – June 15

1969
Installation with projector and self-adhesive letters.
Courtesy of ZKM, Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.

An 8mm or 16mm projector projects light onto the wall with the word ‘possible’ appearing on it. The projector is set up in such a way that the audience should/have to walk between the wall and the projector. The following happens: just by looking at it, it seems as if the word ‘possible’ (in red or black color) is being projected onto the wall.But as they walk through it, the viewer realizes that the word must have been written directly on the wall, because despite the interruption of the projection beam and the viewer’s shadow, the word is still on the wall. What seemed a projected sign, an image, is in reality an object. The real seemed (projected) illusion, the illusion became real – everything seems possible. This open modality of being, this constant latency of the category of possibility in the world, comes in the chosen one
(Peter Weibel, Mediendichtung, Vienna 1982, S. 95) [Translated from Germanb by Google Translate] https://www.peter-weibel.at/portfolio_page/possible-1969

  • Peter Weibel (USSR/AT, 1944–2023) was a post-conceptual artist, curator, and new media theoretician. He started out in 1964 as a visual poet, then later moved from the page to the screen within the sense of post-structuralist methodology. His work includes virtual reality and other digital art forms. From 1999 he was the director of the ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany. [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Weibel]