Born in 1956, in Esztergom, Hungary, Peternák lives and works in Budapest. He studied history and art history, receiving his PhD in 1994 with a dissertation entitled, New Media – Art and Science. He was a member of the Béla Balázs Studio, Budapest (1981–87), the Indigo Group, and worked at the Hungarian National Gallery (1981–83) as well as at the Research Institute for Art History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1983–87).

Peternák has served as Head of the Intermedia Department at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts since its foundation in 1990, and as director of C³: Center for Culture and Communication since 1997.

He has curated numerous large scale exhibitions (The Butterfly Effect; Perspective; Media Model; Vision – image and perception; Aura; Active image; The State of Images etc.), and published many articles and books on contemporary media art and history. He also produced several films and videos in the 1980s.