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 Wiener’s Die Verbesserung von Mitteleuropa, ein roman as his starting point, Dany traces its peculiar interconnections between Dandyism, paranoia, consciousness, and technological development, and explores the resonances these reflections have today.
Dany is less interested in a linear updating of Wiener’s thinking than in its productive contradictions and speculative leaps. In his lecture, he connects Wiener’s ideas about artificial intelligence and technical systems with contemporary experiences of generative AI, its hallucinations, and self-referential processes. The result is a personal interpretation in which Wiener’s texts appear not only as early visions of technological developments but also as a starting point for questions about perception, desire, and the increasing blurring of the line between human and machine thinking.
The recording of the lecture brings to light this unique approach to an author whose thinking, even decades later, offers not so much answers as productive provocations.
Artists
Participating artists
Hans-Christian Dany
studied fine arts at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg. Since 1989, he has published articles in books, catalogs, and international journals such as Spuren, Die Beute, Springerin, and Star Ship.
Published books: Speed. A Society on Drugs (2008), Tomorrow I’ll Be an Idiot. Cybernetics and the Control Society (2013), and Guilt Was My Hobby. The Balance Sheet of a Family (2024). Together with Valérie Knoll, he curated the exhibitions No Dandy, No Fun. Gutaussehend in den Untergang (Kunsthalle Bern, 2020 / Briefing Room, Brussels, 2024) and Udo is Love. A Journey into the Inconceivable Life of Udo Kier (Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2024). He is currently exploring the relationship between generative language models, writing, and schizophrenia.
More contributions
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.
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).
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.”