Siegfried Zielinski

Michel Foucault Chair and Professor of Media Theory at The European Graduate School / EGS.

Biography

Siegfried Zielinski is the Michel Foucault Chair at The European Graduate School / EGS, where he teaches as a professor of mediology and technoculture. He is also the chair of media theory, with a focus on archaeology and variantology of media at the Berlin University of Arts, honorary professor for art and media at the Budapest University of Arts, and is curator at the Karlsruhe Center for Art and Media (ZKM).

Zielinski studied theatre arts, German literature, linguistics, semiotics, sociology, philosophy, and political studies in Marburg and Berlin, at both the Free University and the Technical University. The major focus of his studies centered on the field of advanced technical media (radio, film, video, computers) under Friedrich Knilli, whose department had developed out of the Institute of Language in the Technical Age. In the early 1970s, Zielinski published his first essays on media studies and media critique. While still a student in Berlin, he set up and supervised an experimental video studio.

In 1979, Zielinski made the 16mm-film Responses to Holocaust in Western Germany, which was shown all over the USA in universities and Jewish communities. In the same year, he graduated with a thesis on Veit Harlan, the film director of Jud Suess, which was published as his first monograph in 1981. Together with Knilli he developed and established the first study course in media consulting at the Technical University, Berlin, in the early 1980s. Zielinski’s doctoral dissertation in 1984 was On the History of the Video Recorder; his habilitation in 1989 qualified him to teach media and communication studies at the university level.

In the same year, Zielinski received his first appointment as a professor in audiovisual studies at the University of Salzburg in Austria, where he set up a department for teaching, research, and production of Audiovisions, also the title of his first book translated into English. In Salzburg he also produced a series of twenty short films on the Archaeology of Audiovisuality (1992). During this period, he co-designed and co-directed the program European Summer Academy for Art, Film and Media at the Academy of Arts in Berlin.

In 1993, Zielinski was appointed a professor of communication and media theory at the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, in 1994, he became its founding director and developed the Academy to one of the leading institutions in media art education. In mid-2001, he returned to teaching and research, focusing particularly on the archaeology and variantology of arts and media. Since 2006, he was teaching at the Berlin University of Arts, where he still supervises doctorate students.

From Feb 2016 to March 2018 he was rector of the Karlsruhe University of Arts & Design.

Zielinski has published numerous books and around 200 essays, primarily in the areas of history and theory of media and the arts. In 2011 he completed the five-volume book series on Variantology – Deep Time Relations of Arts, Sciences, and Technologies. Since 2013 he is working on a Genealogy of Media Thinking and Media Acting. So far three volumes have been published in German, 2014, 2015 and 2017. Amongst his more recent monographs in English are Deep Time of the Media, which was published by MIT Press, 2006 (also published in Chinese, Portuguese, Polish, Spanish, and Russian), [… after the Media] — News from the Slowly Outfading 20th Century (University of Minnesota Press, 2013) and Allah’s Automata, a ground-breaking research catalogue, edited with Peter Weibel (2015).

Zielinski has lectured and given seminars in many countries all over the world, and his texts have been translated into many different languages. Within the framework of his activities at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, he curated large exhibitions, initiated and directed the annual festival Digitale (1995–1999, in close cooperation with Nils Roeller), initiated and co-edited the Academy’s year-book Jahrbuch für Künste und Apparate LAB, and, in close collaboration with Silvia Wagnermaier, established the Vilém Flusser Archive and its own publications series. In 2015/16 this part of his work had been concluded with the exhibition Without Ground – Vilém Flusser and the Arts, presented at the ZKM Karlsruhe, the Berlin Academy of Arts, in Den Haag, and in Prague, accompanied by the operational encyclopedia Flusseriana, ed. with P. Weibel and Daniel Irrgang for University of Minnesota Press.

Recently Zielinski has focused on his curatorial work again and developed two large format exhibitions: Dia_Logos – Ramon Llull and the Ars Combinatoria (2015-2019) with Amador Vega, and Art in Motion – 100 Master Pieces with and through Media. An Operative Canon (2018-2020), both with Peter Weibel for the ZKM Karlsruhe and museums in Europe and China.

Zielinski is a member of the European Film Academy (EFA), the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Arts, the Northrhine-Westfalian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and the Magic Lantern Society of Great Britain, among others.

Works

Books

Art in Motion. 100 Master Pieces with and through Media. An Operational Canon, (German: Walther Koenig, Cologne, 2018, English: Thames & Hudson London 2019, both in production)

Dia_Logos – Ramon Llull’s Method of Thought and Artistic Praxis, Ed. and written with Amador Vega and Peter Weibel (University of Minnesota Press, 2018) ISBN: 1517906091.

Genealogie des Mediendenkens. Siegfried Zielinski im Gespräch mit Hans Belting, VALIE EXPORT, Boris Groys, Sybille Kraemer, Peter Weibel and others , (Berlin: Kadmos 2017) ISBN: 3865993125.

Flusseriana – An Intellectual Toolbox, ed. with Peter Weibel and Daniel Irrgang, trilingual: English-German-Portuguese. Minnesota: Univocal, 2015. ISBN: 1937561526.

Bodenlos–Vilém Flusser und die Künste, (Berlin 2015), ed. with Daniel Irrgang in commission of the Berlin Academy of Arts. ISBN: 3883312142.

Allah’s Automata. Artifacts of the Arabic-Islamic Renaissance (800–1200) , (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2015), ed. with Peter Weibel. ISBN: 3775741062.

Over the Head – Projecting Archaeology and Variantology of Arts and Media, Edited by Marcel Marburger, Köln, bi-lingual, edition: 2014 (Künstlerbuch, auf Overhead-Folien gedruckt). ISBN: 3981424611.

[… nach den Medien]. Nachrichten vom ausgehenden zwanzigsten Jahrhundert, Zielinski, Siegfried. [… nach den Medien]. Nachrichten vom ausgehenden zwanzigsten Jahrhundert. Merve. 2011. ISBN: 3883963070.

…After the Media: News from the Slow-Fading Twentieth Century, Zielinksi, Siegfried. …After the Media: News from the Slow-Fading Twentieth Century. Translated by Gloria Custance. Univocal, 2013. ISBN: 193756116X

Kaos Pilot Kairos Poet: Peter Weibel zum Fünfundsechzigsten, Zielinski, Siegfried. Kaos Pilot Kairos Poet: Peter Weibel zum Fünfundsechzigsten. Photographs by Mono Krom. Verlag der Buchhandlung König, 2009. ISBN: 3865606474

Ah Lord, Love Me Passionately: Images of Bodies and Religion in the Lutz Teutloff Collection, Zielinski, Siegfried, and Eckhard Fürlus. Ah Lord, Love Me Passionately: Images of Bodies and Religion in the Lutz Teutloff Collection. Teutloff Photo + Video Collection, 2009.

Archäologie der Medien: zur Tiefenzeit des Technischen Hörens und Sehens, Zielinski, Siegfried. Archäologie der Medien: zur Tiefenzeit des Technischen Hörens und Sehens. Rowohlt, 2002. ISBN: 3499556499

Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means, Zielinski, Siegfried. Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means. Translated by Gloria Custance. Foreword by Timothy Druckrey. MIT Press, 2008. ISBN: 0262240491

媒体考古学: Mei ti kao gu xue., Zielinski, Siegfried. 媒体考古学 / Mei ti kao gu xue. Tranlated by Xigefulide Qilinsiji and Rong Zhenhua. Shang wu yin shu guan, 2006. ISBN: 7100050588

Arqueologia da Mídia em Busca do Tempo Remoto das Técnicas do ver e do Ouvir, Zielinski, Siegfried. Arqueologia da Mídia em Busca do Tempo Remoto das Técnicas do ver e do Ouvir. Translated by Carlos D. Szlak. Annablume, 2006. ISBN: 8574196347

Goodbye, dear pigeons, Zielinski, Siegfried. Goodbye, dear pigeons. Köln König, 2002. ISBN: 3883756024

Wie man sieht … : Museum Ludwig 07.07-19.09.2000, Zielinski, Siegfried. Wie man sieht … : Museum Ludwig 07.07-19.09.2000. KHM, 2000.

Medienwissenschaft: Teil 5: Fiktion als Fakt, Zielinski, Siegfried, and Reiner Matzker. Medienwissenschaft: Teil 5: Fiktion als Fakt. “Metaphysik” der neuen Medien. Peter Lang, 2000. ISBN: 3906758672

Keith Griffiths: The Presence, Zielinski, Siegfried. Keith Griffiths: The Presence. Edited by Angela Huemer. Edition Blimp, 1994. ISBN: 3901272011

Video: Apparat, Medium, Kunst, Kultur, ein Internationaler Reader, Zielinski, Siegfried. Video: Apparat, Medium, Kunst, Kultur, ein Internationaler Reader. Peter Lang, 1992. ISBN: 3631426887

Video: Gewalt und Schweinkram, Zielinski, Siegfried. Video: Gewalt und Schweinkram. Verein für Kritische Sozialwissenschaft und Politische Bildung, 1990.

Audiovisionen: Kino und Fernsehen als Zwischenspiele in der Geschichte, Zielinski, Siegfried. Audiovisionen: Kino und Fernsehen als Zwischenspiele in der Geschichte. Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1989. ISBN: 3499554895

Audiovíziók: A Mozi és a Televízió Mint a Törrténelem Közjátékai, Zielinski, Siegfried. Audiovíziók: A Mozi és a Televízió Mint a Törrténelem Közjátékai. Kiadó, 2009.

Audiovisions: Cinema and Television as Entr’actes in History, Zielinski, Siegfried. Audiovisions: Cinema and Television as Entr’actes in History. Translated by Gloria Custance. Amsterdam University Press. 1999, ISBN: 9053563032

Comicforschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1945-1984, Zielinski, Siegfried. Comicforschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1945-1984. Peter Lang, 1989. ISBN: 3261039558

Germanistische Medienwissenschaft: T. 2, Fernsehspielforschung in der Bundesrepublik und der DDR 1950-1985, Zielinski, Siegfried. Germanistische Medienwissenschaft: T. 2, Fernsehspielforschung in der Bundesrepublik und der DDR 1950-1985. Peter Lang, 1989. ISBN: 3261039566

Germanistische Medienwissenschaft: T. 3, Comicforschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Zielinski, Siegfried. Germanistische Medienwissenschaft: T. 3, Comicforschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Peter Lang, 1989. ISBN: 3261039558

Totale Bildschirmherrschaft: Zusammen mit Sechs Weiteren Autoren erarbeitetes, Zielinski, Siegfried. Totale Bildschirmherrschaft? Zusammen mit Sechs Weiteren Autoren erarbeitetes. Progress, 1987.

Zur Geschichte des Videorecorders, Zielinski, Siegfried. Zur Geschichte des Videorecorders. Spiess, 1986. ISBN: 3891660383

Betrifft: Holocaust: Zuschauer schreiben an den WDR, Zielinski, Siegfried, Gundelsheimer, Erwin, Ostermann, Frank, Mass, Heino, and Knilli, Friedrich. Betrifft Holocaust: Zuschauer schreiben an den WDR. Spiess Volker, 1983. ISBN: 3891662734

Televisionen: Medienzeiten, Zielinski, Siegfried. Televisionen: Medienzeiten. Express Edition, 1983. ISBN: 3885483009

Jud Süss: Filmprotokoll, Programmheft und Einzelanalysen, Zielinski, Siegfried, Friedrich Knilli, Thomas Maurer,and Thomas Radevagen, Thomas. Jud Süss: Filmprotokoll, Programmheft und Einzelanalysen. Spiess, 1983. ISBN: 3891662661

Holocaust zur Unterhaltung: Anatomie eines Internationalen Bestsellers, Zielinski, Siegfried, and Friedrich Knilli. Holocaust zur Unterhaltung: Anatomie eines Internationalen Bestsellers. Espresso, 1982. ISBN: 3882900121

Medienzeiten: Televisionen, Zielinski, Siegfried. Medienzeiten: Televisionen. TU Berlin, 1982.

Veit Harlan: Analysen und Materialien zur Auseinandersetzung mit einem Film-Regisseur des deutschen Faschismus, Zielinski, Siegfried. Veit Harlan: Analysen und Materialien zur Auseinandersetzung mit einem Film-Regisseur des deutschen Faschismus. R.G. Fischer, 1981. ISBN: 3883232807

 

Technik und Massenmedien: Beispiel-Analysen aus einem Projektkurs zur Kultur und Technikvermittlung, Zielinski, Siegfried. “Technik und Massenmedien. Beispiel-Analysen aus einem Projektkurs zur Kultur- und Technikvermittlung.” PhD Diss., TU, 1980.

 

Lectures

Siegfried Zielinski

Siegfried Zielinski – “Matériologie & Varantology” (Excerpt 2)

11.03.2021
Siegfried Zielinski

Siegfried Zielinski – Summer 2020 Lecture – Excerpt – 07.25.2020

07.02.2021
Siegfried Zielinski

“Artificial Extelligence: Transformation and Projection…”

22.08.2019
Siegfried Zielinski

Media Thinking and Acting as Expanded Hermeneutics

28.10.2018
Siegfried Zielinski

About EGS

20.11.2015
Siegfried Zielinski, Boris Groys

Thinking Media and the Man-Machine Relation

27.10.2014