Prof. Dr. Wolfgang M. Heckl

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang M. Heckl, long-time Director General of the Deutsches Museum in Munich and an internationally renowned scientist, unites the precision of scientific observation with the expressive power of art in his creative work.
With his concept of Moleculism, he established a new artistic style: artworks based on real molecular structures made visible through cutting-edge scanning tunneling microscopy. In this approach, the act of painting is reinterpreted as a nanoscale process of pigment molecule self-assembly — a fascinating bridge between physics, chemistry, and aesthetics. Heckl sees creative expression in science and art as two sides of the same coin. His works reveal the hidden beauty of the molecular world — a world in which individual molecules dance, arrange themselves, and form surprisingly harmonious structures. Through this perspective, he brings artistic depth to scientific processes, creating works that are both tools of understanding and aesthetic experiences.

More recently, Heckl has explored the potential of artificial intelligence as an artistic medium. By training neural networks, he succeeds in translating music into visual compositions. The resulting images are not painted by a human hand but generated by an “artificial synesthesia” — and yet they evoke genuine emotional resonance. Throughout the process, Heckl remains the conductor: he trains the algorithms, defines the aesthetic direction, and orchestrates an inspiring interplay of nature, technology, and art.