Eszter Polonyi is a historian of art, media, and science working on the interdisciplinary project sponsored by the Slovenian National Research Agency "The Photo of a Black Hole: Physics meets Photography" (ARIS J7-60121, 2025-2027).
She migrated from New York to Slovenia in 2020 and has since been researching, teaching, and managing state- and EU-level projects in the fields of art theory, art and science studies, and the history of film and photography at a range of institutions in the Adriatic.
University of Nova Gorica, Assistant Professor in Cultural History,
Rector's Cabinet (2022-4), Research Center for the Humanities and School for Humanities (2020-22)
Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana and Museum of Contemporary Art, Metelkova, curator (2023-23)
Pratt Institute, Visiting Assistant Professor
History of Art and Design Department (2017-20)
Columbia University, Core Curriculum Lecturer (2017-20)
Eszter received her PhD in the History of Art from Columbia University (2017), MPhil (2011), MA (2009), an MA from the Courtauld Institute Of Art (2006), and her BA from Wellesley College. Her research has been supported by the Slovenian National Research Agency, COST, the Mellon foundation, SSRC DPDF, Pepsico, DAAD, AHRC (UK), the Hungarian Ministry of Education, Pell Grant, and several other private funding agencies for the arts.
CURRENT PROJECTS
The Photo of a Black Hole: Physics Meets Photography, co-author and team member, Slovenian National Research Agency (ARIS) no. J7-60101 (2025-2027).
The Origins of Automated Identity Recognition in Art, Science, and Spectacle, Habilitationsprojekt, Kunstuniversität Linz (2025-2028)
History of Identity Documentation in European Nations, national management committee member for Slovenia (HIDDEN, COST, no. CA21120, 2022-2026)
Béla Balázs Reading Group (2019-)
COMPLETED PROJECTS
Sustainable Digital Preservation of New Media Art, research team member, Slovenian National Research Agency (ARIS) no. J7-3158 (2022-2025).
An Archaeology of Identity Photography, Principal Investigator, ERC Complementary Scheme, Slovenian National Research Agency (ARIS) no. N6-0244 (2022-2023).
Selection of recent and forthcoming ARTICLES, BOOK CHAPTERS or REVIEWS about the history of art, media and science:
“The Image in Media Archaeology: Crisis or Redemption?,” book chapter in Routledge Reader in Media Archaeology, edited by Doron Galili and Erkki Huhtamo, Routledge Publishing (in press).
“Image as Shelter: Tobias Putrih and Media (Art) History,” text of exhibition catalogue, Tobias Putrih with Ardalan SadeghiKivi: Order of Sweetness, Cukrarna Gallery. 19.6.-15.9.2024, ed. Alenka Gregorič, Ljubljana: Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana Press, 2025 (in press).
“Old as the Future of New Media: the Media Archaeology Lab [Stárost kot prihodnost novih medijev: Laboratorij za medijsko arheologijo],” article in Special Issue on New Media in Art and Culture, Likovne Besede/Art Words. 2024/128, 78-82.
“Institutionalizing Media Art in Slovenia,” select article and abstract in Conference proceedings of RE:SOURCE, The 10th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology, Eds. Francesca Franco and Andrés Burbano, Resource ETS; Venice Center for Digital and Public Humanities; Direzione generale Educaziione, ricerca e istituti culturali, 2024, 331-334, 602.
“"An Opportunity to Grapple with the Picture Plane…": The Stereo-Illusion’s History of Frustration” chapter in Art and Artifice in Visual Culture: Eighteenth Century to the Present, Routledge Research in Art History Series, edited by Michael Yonan, Ovidiu Prejmerean, Sonia Coman, 2024.
“The Return of the Painter: Mechanicity and its Operator” in Dominik Mahnič: Steering the Brush, Ed. Jani Pirnat; Ljubljana: City Museum of Ljubljana, Match Gallery, 2024. Also in Slovenian.
“Franz Ferjan’s Color Stereography: Expanding Sensory Perception,” in An arsenal of memories or an intimate landscape? Franc Ferjan and stereo photography. Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana: 3. 11. 2022 - 22. 1. 2023, Ljubljana: Moderna galerija, 2022.
Review of Tomas Dvorak and Jussi Parikka, editors. Photography Off the Scale. Technologies and Theories of the Mass Image. Techniciti, Edinburgh University Press, 2021., “Hackers and Coders versus Viewers: the Stakes of Photography in an Era of Image Massification” Iluminace, issue no. 3/2021.
“Flicker: Thom Andersen Takes Muybridge to the Movies,” in Provenance and Early Cinema. Ed. Joanne Bernardi, Paolo Cherchi-Usai, Tami Williams, and Joshua Yumibe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2021.
Recent and upcoming TALKS related to the history of art, media and science:
"The Image Tactics of Black Holes: Moving Photographs Beyond Data,” on (Methodological) Black Holes in Photography at the annual College Art Association conference (CAA), New York (Feb 2026)
“Media blindness and illiteracy in the age of automated visual recognition,” at the Culture and Technics conference, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts and Faculty of the Social Sciences, Ljubljana, Slovenia (Dec 2025)
"Black Holes and «One Hundred Thousand Suns»" Dr. Eszter Polonyi, Dr. Sašo Grozdanov, and Rohini Devasher, seminar and workshop at the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck Institute for Art History, Rome and online (Nov 27, 2025)
"Black holes in the arts and beyond" (with Sašo Grozdanov) at Ecology and Performing Arts Symposium, Amfiteater Journal of Performing Arts Theory, Slovenian Theatre Institute, Ljubljana (Oct 9-10, 2025)
"Data Black Holes Versus Data Clouds: Notes from the Extradata Era“ at the Sixth International Scientific Conference of the Department of Theoretical Sciences, UL ALUO;
Between eco-propaganda and the aestheticization of environmental ethics? The role of visual arts practices in addressing environmental and climate change issues, National Art Museum, Ljubljana (Sept 2025)
“Un-learning the Historical Self: the Status of the Image in Media Archaeology” on Preserving Film and Media Materiality: Images, Spaces, and Blindspots panel at FilmForum XXXIst International Film and Media Conference, University of Udine, Udine, Italy (Oct 2024)
“Appropriation and Media Archaeology in the Era of AI: Early Pioneers Vuk Ćosić and Jaka Železnikar” on Game, Literature and Digital World panel of 10th Congress of the European Society of Comparative Literature, Le jeu: Gambling, Gaming and Play in Literature, Paris, France (Sept 2024)
“Old as the Future of New Media: Teaching in Media Archaeology Labs” at the New Technologies, New Perspectives Lecture Series of Speculum Artium, Festival Novomedijske Kulture, Trbovlje, Slovenia (Sept 2024)
“Archiving the Unarchiveable: Institutionalizing Anti-Establishment Media Art in Slovenia,” RE:SOURCE, The 10th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology, Venice, Italy (September 2023)
