Michael Bielicky: Perpetuum mobile

by Mel Alexenberg, Norman M. Klein, Siegfried Zielinski

The German-Czech artist Michael Bielicky (b. Prague, 1954; lives and works in Karlsruhe) has been an innovator in the fields of photography, video, and web-based installation art for over four decades. In an ongoing dialogue with emerging technological developments, his works probe the history of his media from the deepest strata to the magical mathematical practices of the medieval idiosyncratic hybrids that straddle the boundary between the analog and digital worlds. Operating on the interfaces between real and virtual spaces, his media art prompts a critical reflection on the nature of technology, its material and immaterial significations, and the ways in which it informs our perceptions and actions. The book Perpetuum mobile is the first to offer a comprehensive survey of Bielicky’ s rich and diverse oeuvre. The layout, designed by the artist himself, integrates the experimental images into a graphic “ stream of consciousness.” With essays by Mel Alexenberg, Jorge Ferná ndez Torres, Norman M. Klein, Bettina Korintenberg, Peter Sloterdijk, Peter Weibel, and Siegfried Zielinski.

512 pages, Hardcover

Published November 29, 2022

About the author

AKA Melvin Alexenberg & also Melvin L. Alexenberg

Mel Alexenberg is an artist, educator, writer, and blogger working at the interface between art, science, technology, and culture. His artworks explore interrelationships between the networked world and spirituality, postdigital art and Jewish consciousness, space-time systems and electronic technologies, and participatory art and community values. His artworks are in the collections of more than forty museums worldwide.

Alexenberg was professor of art and education at Columbia University, head of the art department at Pratt Institute, dean at New World School of the Arts in Miami, and research fellow at MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies. In Israel, he is professor emeritus of art and Jewish thought at Ariel University, head of Emunah College School of the Arts, and former professor at Bar-Ilan University and Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.

He is the author of the books: Photograph God: Creating a Spiritual Blog of Your Life (CreateSpace), The Future of Art in a Postdigital Age: From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness and Educating Artists for the Future: Learning at the Intersections of Art, Science, Technology, and Culture (both published by Intellect Books/University of Chicago Press), Dialogic Art in a Digital World: Judaism and Contemporary Art (in Hebrew), Aesthetic Experience in Creative Process (Bar-Ilan University Press), and with Otto Piene, LightsOROT: Spiritual Dimensions of the Electronic Age (MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies and Yeshiva University Museum).

Born and educated in New York, Alexenberg earned degrees at Queens College, Yeshiva University, and New York University. He lives with his wife, artist Miriam Benjamin, in Ra'anana, Israel.