In Conversation: Making & Memory
Curators Valerie Messini and Brooklyn J. Pakathi in conversation
with artist Jakob Lena Knebl and Ulrike Kuch, Rector of the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Presented by the Weibel Institute
for Digital Cultures as part of the exhibition Thinking Through Weibel.
This
discussion reflects on what it means to revisit Weibel’s early artistic practice through archival works and to position them
alongside contemporary practices that unsettle, expand, or depart from his concerns. It asks how such a juxtaposition can
generate fresh perspectives on media, politics, language, and play, and how contemporary artistic positions inflect and redirect
these questions today.
The conversation considers how the archival selections foreground formative impulses in
Weibel’s work, while the invited artists open distinct lines of practice that move through other traditions and geographies.
Together, these strands create a space where early artistic propositions can be encountered in relation to ongoing inquiries.
The event also underscores the importance of the University’s role in supporting artistic experimentation and of the
Weibel Institute for Digital Cultures in shaping conditions for open, critical, and diverse trajectories. By bringing together
the perspectives of rector Ulrike Kuch and the perspective of artist Jakob Lena Knebl, the conversation highlights both institutional
and artistic commitments to sustaining forms of inquiry that remain unfinished, provisional, and vital.
In framing
the exhibition, the opening conversation invites the audience to think with the tension between archive and present practice.
It sets the tone for Thinking Through Weibel as a project that treats beginnings as openings for further exploration, where
the past and present are placed side by side to extend the possibilities of artistic thought.
Jakob Lena
Knebl
Born in Baden, Austria, in 1970, Jakob Lena Knebl is an artist, curator, and Professor of Transmedia Art
at University of Applied Arts Vienna. She studied fashion design with Raf Simons and textual sculpture with Heimo Zobernig.
Her work examines the relationship between art, design, and socio-cultural phenomena, creating immersive environments where
identity and desire are sensually experienced and renegotiated.
Ulrike Kuch
Ulrike Kuch has
been Vice President for Social Transformation at the Bauhaus University Weimar since June 2023. Kuch studied architecture
at the Bauhaus University Weimar, the Teknillinen Korkeakoulu Helsinki (now Aalto University), the Technical University of
Berlin, and the Berlin University of the Arts. Ulrike Kuch has been involved in the strategic development of the Bauhaus University
Weimar and the shaping of democratic processes as a member of the University Council, the Senate, the Senate Committee for
Research & Projects, and as co-director of the Bauhaus Institute for History and Theory of Architecture and Planning.
Kuch's research focuses on architecture and image, phenomenology of architecture, peripheral architectures, and global history
of architecture. Ulrike Kuch is rector of the University of Applied Arts since November 2025.
Valerie Messini
Valerie Messini is a registered architect, digital artist and Senior Scientist at the Weibel Institute for Digital Cultures.
Her research dives into the concept of nothingness, examining how digital technologies and digital design tools impact space,
identity, and perception, alongside the role of immersive media and virtual space in shaping our understanding and interaction
with the digital realm. Her PhD “void set – about emptiness in virtual space” was initially supervised by Peter Weibel and
after his demise by Clemens Apprich. She published in international journals and presented her research at multiple
Conferences around Europe.
Brooklyn J. Pakathi
Brooklyn J. Pakathi is a transmedia artist
based in Vienna whose practice critically examines ontologies of emotion through material and spatial interventions. Influenced
by phenomenology and affect theory, their work explores configurations of intimacy, melancholy, and longing, questioning and
reconfiguring the boundaries between the tangible and the immaterial. As an independent curator, Pakathi's research focuses
on methodologies of decolonization, cultural justice, and alternative epistemologies that address technology and spatial practice.
This exhibition Thinking Through Weibel is initiated by the Weibel Institute for Digital Cultures and emerges
through collaboration with the Institute Collection and Archive and the AIL, all part of the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
