Kontakte – Das Jahrbuch der KIT-Fakultät für Architektur 2023

Miracle of Inconspicuous
Things – Stephan von
Huene and the Birth of
Media Art
On the occasion of the 90th birthday of Stephan
von Huene (Los Angeles 1932 – Hamburg 2000),
the Institute for Art and Architectural History at
KIT and the ZKM | Karlsruhe, under the direction
of Jesús Muñoz Morcillo and Oliver Jehle, organised
an international symposium in which both
established researchers and students of art history
at KIT participated.
Stephan von Huene was an American artist
of German origin. He is considered as a pioneer
of media art – making relevant contributions in
the field of kinetic sound art. But it is not only
about his sound sculptures and art installations.
As one of the first teachers at the Staatliche
Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe (HfG) he
advocated a qualitative conception of media art
that still inspires reflection on communication
processes and human-environment relations.
Perceived by his students as a feminist teacher
at CalArts in the 1970s and highly regarded as a
researching artist, Stephan von Huene can be
understood as a pioneering figure of highly topical
discourses: He used the term intra-action
with recourse to cybernetic theories to explain
his art-human systems – long before this term
was reintroduced into neo-materialist discourse
by the physicist and philosopher Karen Barad.
The symposium Miracle of Inconspicuous Things
– Stephan von Huene and the Birth of Media Art
focused on the analytical and conservational development
of his oeuvre, the art historical classification
of the artist and a critical reading from
the perspective of new discourses.
The following art historians and media theorists
took part: Peter Weibel, Horst Bredekamp,
Petra Kipphoff, Achatz von Müller, Werner Lorke,
Olaf Westphalen, Yashuhiro Sakamoto, Marvin
Altner, Yannis Hadjinicolaou; as well as the artists
Mira Schor, Olav Westphalen and Thomas
Zitzwitz. In addition, work-in-progress papers by
the following KIT art history students were presented
after a peer-review process: Alexandra Brjezovskaia,
Lara di Carlo, Denise Ganz, Alexandra
Star and Linhui Yang.
The event was supported by funds from the
KIT Department Teaching Award 2022, which
was awarded to Jesús Muñoz Morcillo.
(IKB)
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