Jochen Gerz, born 1940, In 1966, the year he settled in Paris, he joined the visual poetry movement. In 1968 he co-founded the alternative editorial group Agentzia. Gerz would henceforth explore several artistic paths at the same time, always keenly critiquing the media and desiring to involve the spectator in the creative process. After 1968, Gerz would question, in several installations, the cultural and social function of Western culture. In 1976, Gerz represented Germany in the Venice Biennale and, in 1977 and 1987, participated in Documenta 6 and 7 in Kassel. In the 1980s, the artist was commissioned to create several monuments in which he would subvert the idea of commemoration, turning spectators into actors.
Long before the Anthology of Art, Jochen Gerz used the Internet in several projects: Plural Sculpture (1995), in collaboration with the website of the Purchase State University of New York and Artforum asking 'If art had the power to change your time, what would you ask for?' The answers were also exhibited at the New York Kunsthalle; The Berkeley Oracle (1997/8) with the visitors of the website of the Berkeley Art Museum, in homage to the events of May 68, who could ask unanswered questions. A series of chosen questions were recorded on plaques and installed in unexpected places in the Berkeley Art Museum. This project was later installed at the ZKM, Centre of Art and Media Technology of Karlsruhe/Germany in 1999.