Podcast Episode Lehni

This is the sporadic podcast hosted by Kunsthaus Zürich, which started in 2021 and where we already talked with exciting art loving experts from various fields such as Nobel prize winner for Economics William Nordhaus, sociologist and climate war specialist Harald Welzer, and ecofeminist Vandana Shiva in the framework of project such as “Earth Beats” and “Re-Orientations.”

My name is Cathérine Hug, I am curator for Modern Art at the Kunsthaus, with a special love for Dada as well as computer-based Art. Our guest is Jürg Lehni, a pioneer in digital art, who became well-known for his creative Robots such as Hector and Rita some 20 years ago. Lehni has internationally exhibited in group and solo shows at the MoMA New York, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Centre Pompidou in Paris, ICA as well as V&A in London, to name only a few, and is now at the Kunsthaus with two impressive installations, namely “Four Transitions” and “Apple Talk,” about which we spoke on Wednesday of August 7, 2024.

In this episode Lehni will introduce us in the material beauty and artistic relevance of computer hardware, but also how the relationship between art and computers altered over the past 20 years due to technological disruptions, or to start with a quote: “Computers are not much more than elaborated hammers.”