Date: March 19-20, 2026

Location: Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck Institute for Art History
Villino Stroganoff, Via Gregoriana 22, 00187 Rome (Public event without registration)

Speaker: Dr. Eszter Polonyi

This conference examines limits, opacity, and the unknown by bringing together two notions from very different domains: the black hole of astrophysics and the black box of computation in which theoretical and empirical boundaries are reached.

This conference examines limits, opacity, and the unknown by bringing together two notions from very different domains: the black hole of astrophysics, where empirical and theoretical boundaries are reached, and the black box of computation and technology, whose inner workings are inaccessible even as they produce observable effects. Rather than treating them simply as objects of absence, the conference approaches black holes and black boxes as conceptual, aesthetic, and methodological frameworks for exploring what is partly unseeable, partly generative, and always challenging the thresholds of knowledge and perception. By juxtaposing perspectives from art, media, and science, we want to investigate how these frameworks allow us to study, imagine, and engage with phenomena that elude us.

Hybrid access:
19.02.2026:https://eu02web.zoom-x.de/j/67093757575?pwd=3V5a6hwb6NYAArZzYQ6Fq50ZyZHVKt.1
20.03.2026:https://eu02web.zoom-x.de/j/67042030958?pwd=jRXF7TnOfuQPeSQnPX3UeoOCeRO7iQ.1