Date:
Thursday, 11 December 2025, 1.30–5.00 pm
Venue:
Witten/Herdecke University
Room E. 022 a/b (Wood Bldg.)
Alfred-Herrhausen-Str. 48
58455 Witten
and
via Zoom
(upon registration)
The detailed program and registration information for online participation via Zoom will be announced shortly.
Scientific Organisation:
- Dr. Regine Ehleiter, Research Associate at the Chair for Digital Arts and Cultural Communication at the WittenLab.Future Laboratory Studium Fundamentale at the University of Witten/Herdecke and Senior Fellow of the Centre for Advanced Study “Access to Cultural Goods in Digital Change”
The fourth edition of the series “Reading Artists’ Books” presents publications that, since the 1960s, have critically reflected on computational thinking—that is, ways of thinking shaped by computer-based and algorithmic processes—or that have relied on computer technologies in their making. Already in the 1960s and 1970s, artists and theorists asked whether computers could expand or even replace creativity, how algorithmic tools might alter artistic roles, and who would have access to these emerging technologies. These questions, first raised over half a century ago, resurface today with renewed urgency in the context of current debates on artificial intelligence. Publications such as Alison Knowles’ A House of Dust (1969), Stanley Brouwn’s 100 this-way-brouwn-problems for computer IBM 360 model 95 (1970), and Manfred Mohr’s Artificiata I (1969) demonstrate how concepts of chance, iteration, and algorithmic logic were translated into the analogue medium of the artist’s book—often coupled with a critical reflection on the promises and limits of digital technologies.
The event takes place within the framework of the Studium Fundamentale at Witten/Herdecke University and also connects to ongoing discussions within the Centre for Advanced Study “Access to Cultural Goods in Digital Change” at the University of Münster. Ian Clewe (Düsseldorf) and Shinji Toya (London) address topics such as the inaccessibility of NetArt and digital obsolescence, foregrounding the fragility of network-based artworks and digital infrastructures. Another group of presentations focuses on publications addressing the role of women in computing history, recalling that in the early days, “computers” referred to predominantly female workers who performed complex calculations by hand. Computers at Work. About Women in Computing (2019) by Sophie Rentien Lando serves as the starting point for a presentation by students from Regine Ehleiter’s seminar on early computing and the arts. Gloria Hasnay (Düsseldorf) will discuss her publication Key Operators. Weaving and Coding as Languages of Feminist Historiography (2024), accompanying her exhibition of the same title at Kunstverein München. Finally, Jonathan Harth (Berlin/Witten) explores the famous notes of British mathematician Ada Lovelace, widely regarded as the world’s first computer programmer.
The program brings together artists, theorists, publishers, and curators who will introduce selected publications in short presentations (10–15 minutes each), among them art historians Hannah Higgins (Chicago), Margit Rosen (Karlsruhe), and Ursula Frohne (Münster); literary scholar Frank Fischer (Berlin); designer and programmer Jürg Lehni (Zurich); and artists Antye Guenther (Rotterdam), Andreas Bülhoff (Hamm/Berlin), and Rodrigo Araya Yáñez (Santiago de Chile).
The event was organised by Regine Ehleiter, Research Associate at the Chair for Digital Arts and Cultural Communication at the WittenLab.Future Laboratory Studium Fundamentale at the University of Witten/Herdecke and Senior Fellow of the Centre for Advanced Study “Access to Cultural Goods in Digital Change”, and is organized in cooperation with the Office & Network for Media Art and Digital Culture medienwerk.nrw and the Centre for Advanced Study “Access to Cultural Goods in Digital Change” at the University of Münster. The Centre is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The work of medienwerk.nrw is funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, on whose behalf it undertakes coordination, professionalization, and advisory tasks in the field of media art. The medienwerk.nrw office is based at HMKV Hartware MedienKunstVerein in Dortmund.
The Reading Artists’ Books series was initiated by Regine Ehleiter and Tabea Nixdorff (Arnhem) in memory of Chicago-based curator and librarian Doro Boehme (1957–2022). It offers a public platform for artistic publishing practices through collective reading and lecture formats. Previous editions focused on publications as a medium for presenting artistic writing practices (HGB Leipzig, 2022) and on “asemic writing,” inspired by the works of Argentine conceptual artist Mirtha Dermisache (Freie Universität Berlin, 2024). Recordings of previous events are available on the series’ Vimeo channel.
Links: