Mara-Johanna Kölmel explores the profound impact of digital technologies on the field of sculpture since the 1950s. When artists create their works using AI, custom software, or prototyping technologies, how should we be rethinking the concept of sculpture? Through the works of Morehshin Allahyari, Alice Channer, and Sterling Crispin, as well as an inter-generational group of artists, she examines how plasticity, corporeality, and monumentality have been transformed by the digital. Introducing concepts such as more-than-human corporeality, digital plasticity, and nomadic monumentality, the book encourages a re-evaluation of the sculptural. Systematically and transhistorically, the author connects research perspectives on sculpture and digital media, highlighting how the understanding of the sculptural has evolved into the (post-)digital age.
Mara-Johanna Kölmel ist Kuratorin und leitet die Abteilung Kunst am Zeppelin Museum. Sie hat international in verschiedenen kuratorischen Positionen gearbeitet, darunter für die Biennale of Sydney, das Arko Art Centre Seoul, die Kunsthalle Hamburg oder die Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart. Sie erwarb ihren Master in Kunstgeschichte am Courtauld Institute of Art und promovierte an der Leuphana Universität Lüneburg. Sie hat zahlreiche Aufsätze zur zeitgenössischen Kunst und digitalen Technologien publiziert und ist Mitherausgeberin der Publikationen The Sculptural in the (Post)Digital Age und Dada Data. Contemporary Practice in the Era of Post-Truth Politics (Bloosmbury).
