Vita
Peter Bexte, born 1954, has been Professor for Aesthetics at the KHM in Cologne since 2008. He received his M.A. in German Literature and Religious Sciences in 1984 from Freie Universität Berlin and his PhD in Sciences of Art in 1996 from the University of Kassel. In addition to various assistant professorships with the Academy of Art in Bremen (1989 to 1996), Peter Bexte worked as an editor for Art magazine Wolkenkratzer from 1984 to 1985. Furthermore, he was advisory board member of the Internationales Designzentrum (IDZ) in Berlin and curator of a division of Berlin's millennium exhibition "Sieben Hügel – Bilder und Zeichen des 21. Jahrhunderts". He has worked as a research lecturer at FHTW Berlin, at the University of Potsdam, at Humboldt University and the University of Arts in Berlin from 2001 to 2004. He was visiting professor for the "History and Theory of Technical Media" at the University of Potsdam from 2005 to 2008.
Dated from 2012
Fields of research
History of sciences and aesthetics, with a focus on the triangle of images/perception/media and concepts of space.
IKKM Research Project
Tables and Transformations. Some Ideas about the Notion of Relation
Tables do not simply offer a neutral surface. A closer look at tables in artistic, scientific, religious or military contexts shows their active character: they transform relations. Surrealist artists have been well aware of this, performing time and again strange encounters of objects on a table (»la rencontre fortuite sur une table de dissection« as Lautréamont had it; cf. Maldoror, Chant 6, §1). The lecture will present some examples. It will especially discuss the notion of »relation« which was a common expression in structuralism. Wolfgang Kemp has applied it to the history of art, and Michel Serres has called his philosophy »une théorie des relations«. The expression »relation« refers to different traditions - formal logic, topology, linguistics, ethnography etc. These various traditions overlap each other whenever we say »relation«. Unfolding these various dimensions of the word will be necessary in order to understand what tables do.
Publications
Monographs
Blinde Seher. Wahrnehmung von Wahrnehmung in der Kunst des 17. Jahrhunderts. Mit einem Anhang zur Entdeckung des Blinden Flecks im Jahre 1668. Dresden: Verlag der Kunst 1999.
Edited books
Maschinendenken/Denkmaschinen. An den Schaltstellen zweier Kulturen (mitWerner Künzel). Frankfurt a. M.: Insel Verlag 1996.
Allwissen und Absturz. Der Ursprung des Computers (mit Werner Künzel). Frankfurt a. M.: Insel Verlag 1993.
Präsenz. Zeitspeicher und Time Machines (mit Werner Künzel). Berlin: Edition Künzel 1991.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Barockprojekte. Maschinenwelt und Netzwerk im 17. Jahrhundert (mit Werner Künzel). Berlin: Edition Künzel 1990.
Articles
Henry Moores Atom Piece/Nuclear Energy. In: ATOMBILDER. Ikonographie des Atoms in Wissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit des 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. by Charlotte Bigg and Jochen Hennig, Göttingen: Wallstein 2009, S. 126-134 (Deutsches Museum, Abhandlungen und Berichte, NF Bd. 25).
Sicht und Einsicht. Zum Topos des blinden Mathematikers. In: Mathesis & Graphé. Leonard Euler und die Entfaltung der Wissenssysteme, ed. by Horst Bredekamp and Wladimir Velminski, Berlin: Akademie 2009, S. 67-83.
Luftraum. Das Labyrinth der Welt im Blick von oben, in: welt[stadt]raum. Mediale Inszenierungen, ed. by Annett Zinsmeister, Bielefeld: transcript 2008, S. 53-65.
Zwischen-Räume: Kybernetik und Strukturalismus. In: Topologie. Zur Raumbeschreibung in den Kultur- und Medienwissenschaften, ed. by Stefan Günzel. Bielefeld: transcript 2007, S. 219-233.
Kabel im Denkraum. AbyWarburg und Oliver Heaviside. In: Updates. Visuelle Medienkompetenz, ed. by Arthur Engelbert and Manja Herlt. Würzburg 2002, S. 17-43.
Orte des satanischen Gelächters. In: Dietmar Kamper / ChristophWulf (eds.): Lachen – Gelächter – Lächeln. Reflexionen in drei Spiegeln. Frankfurt a. M.: Syndikat Verlag 1986, S. 276-288.