Nicola Cipani, Thomas Eder
On Oswald Wiener’s « die verbesserung von mitteleuropa, roman »
Video
As part of the accompanying program for the exhibition A. I. O., the two renowned Oswald Wiener experts Nicola Cipani and Thomas Eder will discuss Die Verbesserung von Mitteleuropa (1969). Wiener’s radical text straddles the boundaries of literature, theory, and linguistic criticism, developing a unique engagement with the technological and social conditions of his time.
Building on Wiener’s engagement with cybernetics and artificial intelligence, Cipani and Eder discuss the novel’s intellectual currents and its surprising relevance today. They address questions of control and regulation, the limits of human agency, and the possibility of escaping existing orders. The transcript of the conversation offers a window into a work that, as early as the 1960s, raised questions that are now resurfacing with renewed urgency.
Artists
Participating artists
Nicola Cipani
earned his doctorate at Humboldt University in Berlin with a dissertation on Renaissance mnemonics. He teaches at New York University, where he offers comparative literature seminars on literary machines, visual poetry, and sound poetry. He has also translated Oswald Wiener’s verbesserung von mitteleuropa into Italian and provided a commentary on it. His commentary was published in German by Ergon Verlag in 2022 (On the Theory of a “Roman”: Oswald Wiener’s “verbesserung von mitteleuropa”). In parallel to his academic work, he has occasionally been active in the field of experimental music. He is currently working on an edition of Giordano Bruno’s On the Shadows of Ideas.
Thomas Eder
is a literary scholar specializing in the literature of the Neo-Avant-Garde and “Cognitive Poetics”; he teaches at the Institute of German Studies at the University of Vienna and oversees the literature section at kunsthaus muerz. In addition, Eder is an editorial board member of the journal wespennest, a literary event organizer and educator, and heads the Department of Corporate Identity, Communication Design, and Publications at the Federal Chancellery of the Republic of Austria.
Recent publications include: Oswald Wiener’s Theory of Thought. Conversations and Essays on Fundamental Issues in Cognitive Science, ed. with T. Raab and M. Schwarz, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter 2023; The Vienna Circle and the Vienna Group, ed. with K. Kokái, Vienna: NoPress 2024; Hölderlin’s Ode “Blödigkeit.” Text, Interpretations, and Essays, ed. with R. Heinrich, Paderborn: Brill | Fink (in press, to be published in 2026 as Volume 6 of the series “Hölderlin-Forschungen,” ed. by J. Robert and M. Vöhler)
More contributions
Hans-Christian Dany: Oswald Wieners Überlegungen zum Spannungsfeld von Dandyism, Paranoia und KI, als frühe Ahnung der gegenwärtigen Probleme der großen Sprachmodelle mit Autophagie, Halluzinationen und dem Habsburg-Effekt
Video
As part of the exhibition A. I. O., Hans-Christian Dany approaches Oswald Wiener’s work from a contemporary perspective. Taking Die Verbesserung von Mitteleuropa, ein roman (The Improvement of Central Europe, a novel) as his starting point, he connects Wiener’s reflections on dandyism, paranoia, and artificial intelligence with today’s experiences with generative AI, and explores the unique resonances that Wiener’s speculative thinking continues to evoke in the present.
Exhibition Tour
A.rtificial I.ntrospection O.
Video
A.rtificial I.ntrospection O. explores the conditions of thinking, perception, and consciousness at the intersection of cybernetics, artificial intelligence, and self-observation, bringing Oswald Wiener’s ideas into dialogue with artistic positions from different generations.
Michael Krebber talks to Sandro Droschl
Video
As part of the exhibition A.rtificial I.ntrospection O., Michael Krebber speaks with Sandro Droschl about his artistic practice and his engagement with the writings and conceptual models of Oswald Wiener.
A.rtificial I.ntrospection O.
Exhibition Tour
Slide show
The exhibition A.rtificial I.ntrospection O. (A.I.O.) explores questions of thought, perception, and subjectivity at the intersection of introspection, cybernetics, and artificial intelligence. Its point of departure is the work of the Austrian writer, cognitive psychologist, and cybernetician Oswald Wiener (1935 – 2021), whose genuine thinking since the 1950s critically navigated between these fields while systematically resisting institutional appropriation.
Dr. Brigitte Borchhardt-Birbaumer
Susanne Wenger’s painting between Africa and Europe
Video
In her lecture, art historian and curator Brigitte Borchhardt-Birbaumer examines Susanne Wenger’s work as a transcultural Gesamtkunstwerk that bridges European modernism and Yorùbá ritual practice, creating a new sacred aesthetic that merges art, ritual, and cultural boundaries.
Kathy Rae Huffman
FROM CYBERFEMINISM
UNTIL NOW
Video
Kathy Rae Huffman’s lecture traces the evolution of cyberfeminism since the 1990s: it connected women in the digital sphere, challenged existing power structures, and presented examples — from VNS Matrix to contemporary digital activism — that highlight critiques of platform corporations, AI cultures, and global inequalities.
Xol Meissner
Concert
Video
New York-based artist Xol Meissner — the alter ego of composer Mauro Hertig — has transformed the HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark into a hypnotic soundscape of extraordinary intensity with his haunting music, which oscillates between contemporary classical and avant-garde rock.
Karin M. Schmidlechner
Styrian women during and after National Socialism
Video
In her research and in the volume Aus dem Blickfeld (Out of Sight), co-edited with Heimo Halbrainer, Karin Maria Schmidlechner demonstrates that the lived realities of Styrian women during the Nazi era and the postwar period were diverse and ambivalent. Hence, she broadens the scholarly discourse on their daily lives while simultaneously deconstructing common narratives such as that of the conformist woman or the so-called “rubble woman.”