Erhard Schüttpelz is laureate of the Scholar’s Prize 2025

The Aby Warburg Foundation awards its scholar’s prize to Erhard Schüttpelz, Professor of Media Theory and PI at the CRC 1187 Media of Cooperation at the University of Siegen. The award recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the arts, culture and humanities.

→ press release of the Aby-Warburg-Stiftung

About the laureate Erhard Schüttpelz

Erhard Schüttpelz, born in 1961 in Haldern (now Rees), studied in Hannover, Exeter, Bonn, Cologne and Oxford (St. Johns) and completed his doctorate in 1994 at the University of Bonn. In 1994/95 he was a Feodor Lynen Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at Columbia University, New York. From 1996 to 1998, he was a postdoc at the DFG Research Training Group Theory of Literature and Communication at the University of Konstanz; from 1998 to 2003, he was a research associate preparing and then working at the DFG Collaborative Research Centre Media and Cultural Communication at the universities of Cologne, Bonn and Aachen. He completed his habilitation at the University of Konstanz in 2003, where he was scientific coordinator of the research initiative Cultural Theory and Theory of the Political Imaginary from 2003 to 2005, funded by the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize awarded to Albrecht Koschorke. In 2005, he was a fellow at the IFK (Vienna). Since 2005, he has been a professor of media theory at the University of Siegen. Principal investigator of the DFG Research Training Group Locating Media and the DFG Collaborative Research Center Media of Cooperation. 2012-2016 Elected member of the DFG Review Board 103, 2018-2022 Member of the University Council of the University of Siegen. He has also held fellowships in Weimar, Konstanz, Berlin (FU), Münster and at the Center for Advanced Studies – Erlangen.

His interests are in the fields of philology and cultural studies. They first led him from structuralist literary theory to the linguistic theory of rhetorical figures, fuelled by a fondness for impossible syntheses that could have bridged the gap between continental and analytical philosophy, for cross-disciplinary border crossers, for the history of science in the humanities in the context of science and technology studies, and for figures of transition, border objects, tricksters, disturbances, images. He found his home in the German media studies that had emerged in the meantime – of which he says they are »a discipline that I could neither have studied nor better have thought up in order to pursue my interest in opportunities for cooperation.«

His films and books include, among others, a film with the working title Gaabi Cirey! and the voice of Hanns Zischler (with Anja Dreschke and Carlo Peters), the film A Kind of World War (with Anselm Franke, 2021), online at: https://www.hkw.de/de/app/mediathek/video/84649 and the books A Kind of World War / Eine Art Weltkrieg (with Anselm Franke, Berlin, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, 2021), Die Moderne im Spiegel des Primitiven. Weltliteratur und Ethnologie 1870-1960 (Munich 2005), Deutland (Berlin 2023) and Medium, Medium: Elemente einer Anthropologie (Berlin 2025). His volume »Schlangenritual«. Der Transfer der Wissensformen vom Tsu’ti’kive der Hopi bis zu Aby Warburgs Kreuzlinger Vortrag (Berlin 2007), co-edited with Cora Bender and Thomas Hensel, emerged from a conference at the Warburg-Haus in 2002.

Date and title of Erhard Schüttpelz’s laureate lecture at the Warburg-Haus in the second half of 2025 are to be announced in the near future.

→ Publications by Erhard Schüttpelz on Researchgate

About the Scholar’s Prize of the Aby Warburg Foundation

With its scholar’s prize, the Wissenschaftspreis, the Aby Warburg Foundation has been recognizing outstanding research in the field of art history, cultural studies, and the humanities every year since 1995. An integral part of the award is that prizewinners are also expected to give a lecture at the Warburg Haus.

The Martin Warnke Medal was endowed by the Aby Warburg Foundation and Universität Hamburg to mark the retirement of art historian Professor Martin Warnke from the Kunstgeschichtliches Seminar. Since 2005, it has been awarded every three years for academic achievements in the field of cultural studies. The prize is named after Martin Warnke, who was professor of art history at Universität Marburg from 1971 to 1978. From 1979, he taught at Universität Hamburg and served as the director of the Research Centre for Political Iconography at the Warburg Haus in Hamburg. In 1991, he was awarded the Leibniz Prize. He retired in 2002 and was bestowed with the title professor emeritus. Martin Warnke was a member of the Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung. In 2006, he received the Gerda Henkel Prize, an international research prize awarded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung Düsseldorf, and was granted an honorary doctorate by the Technische Universität Dresden in 2007 and by the Technische Universität Dortmund in 2010. Martin Warnke died on December 11th, 2019, in Halle/Saale.

About the Aby Warburg Foundation

The Aby-Warburg-Stiftung is a foundation under German civil law. The purpose of the foundation is to promote scholarship in Hamburg. It funds the Warburg professorship and places a special emphasis on the promotion of lectures at the Warburg Haus. To this end, it holds conferences, seminars, and symposia in the reading room of the Warburg Haus, which has been allocated to the foundation for such purposes. Lectures also form a central part of the scholarship programme, which is funded by the foundation. The foundation invites acclaimed researchers in the humanities and social sciences to take part in order to make their work known to a wider audience.

→ Read more about the foundation

How to deconstruct and transform digital infrastructures through practices of hacking, queering, countering, and resisting

We are excited to invite you to this summer’s Lecture Series on “Unstitching Datafication”. Inspired by the seam ripper figure and historical forms of technological resistance, we invited eight guest speakers from the arts, activism and academia to explore how digital technologies can be un- and re-stitched by working on their seams.

→ Website of the Lecture Series

About the lecture series

“Unstitching Datafication” means deconstructing and transforming digital technologies by working on their ‘seams’. This means examining the social and economic relations and how they have been and can be reconfigured by technology. We invited eight speakers from arts, activism, and academia to explore the limits of digital technology and discuss what it means to intentionally create seams, ruptures, and breakdowns within digital technologies and infrastructures. Even partial unstitching generates holes in the digital fabric that expose the inner workings of opaque digital systems. These holes create openings and opportunities to intervene in structures and algorithmic logic, allowing us to envision utopian futures and alternative digitalities.

The lecture series uses the figure of the seam ripper, or unstitcher, as a textile metaphor to permeate the digital realm, drawing inspiration from previous research: Mark Weiser’s notion of ubiquitous computing famously rests on the ideal of seamless data transfer, devices inform net-work connections, and the World Wide Web remains the most expansive digital fabric. The connection between weaving and computing runs deep. Ellen Harlizius-Klück called automatic weaving a “binary art”, which paved the way for one of the first machines to be operated by punched cards: the Jacquard loom in the early 19th century.

Using the figure of the unstitcher, we understand glitches and noise, the unintended yet often revealing features of digital systems, as options for productive resistance, disconnection, and subversion. Media theory, human geography, gender studies, and critical theory understand these moments as “glitch epistemologies” (Leszczynski & Elwood), “glitch politics” (Alvarez Léon), “queer counter conduct” (Lingel) or even “anti-fascist approach to artificial intelligence” (McQuillan). The often unassuming actions of resistance or obfuscation that lead to the unstitching and, ultimately, to the unravelling of digital processes expose the inherent fragility of digital systems and create spaces for creative interventions and counteraction.

Yet, instead of emphasizing the ‘textility’ of our digital world, the eight lectures focus on how to disrupt the digital world and the seams and frictions of datafication, where knowledge emerges, and resistance takes shape. Building on ‘unstitching datafication’, the series examines the flaws and breakdowns in the supposedly seamless connectivity of today’s technologies.

Lectures & Speakers

We invited eight guest speakers from the arts, activism and academia. They come from the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, USA, Germany and Great Britain.  In their lectures, they will focus on practices that can challenge, disrupt, and reconfigure existing norms and structures within digital environments where the sensing and sense-making of people, media, and sensors become intertwined.  Thus, our speakers will move beyond the destructive aspect inherent to unstitching seams and networks and instead ask how digital technologies can be unstitched through hacking, queering, countering, and resisting datafication and ‘data colonialism’ – be it through technical manipulations, artistic interventions, or activist action.

Event Details

• Dates: April 16 – July 16, 2025
• Location: University of Siegen, Herrengarten 3, Room: AH-A 217/18
• Streaming: via Webex
• Time: Wednesdays, 2:15 AM – 3:45 PM CET

How to Register

All events take place in hybrid form (on-site and via Webex). No registration is required if you would like to attend on-site. To attend the lecture online via Webex, please register here →

For more information about the program and detailed schedule, visit the lecture series’ website.

Contact

info[æt]sfb1187.uni-siegen.de

Follow us

Follow us on social media for more updates →

 #CRC2025 #Unstitching #glitch #DataColonialism #luddism

Thank you, and we hope to see you there!

Literature

Alvarez Léon, L. F. (2022). “From glitch epistemologies to glitch politics.” Dialogues in Human Geography 12(3), 384-388, DOI: 10.1177/20438206221102951.

Harlizius-Klück, E. (2017). “Weaving as Binary Art and the Algebra of Patterns.” TEXTILE 15(2), 176–197, DOI: 10.1080/14759756.2017.1298239.

Leszczynski, A., & Elwood, S. (2022). “Glitch epistemologies for computational cities.” Dialogues in Human Geography 12(3), 361-378, DOI: 10.1177/20438206221075714.

Lingel, J. (2020). “Dazzle camouflage as queer counter conduct.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 24(5), 1107-1124, DOI: 10.1177/1367549420902805.

McQuillan, D. (2022). Resisting AI: An Anti- Fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence. Bristol: Bristol University Press.

The datafied Web – 6^th RESAW 2025 conference

June 4 – 6, 2025, at the University of Siegen

Registration for the 6^th RESAW conference (June 4-6) is now open. You can register on our conference website until May 15^th.

➞ Register now

About the registration

Registration for the pre-conference is not mandatory but highly appreciated. Spontaneous participation is also welcome. During registration, please indicate whether you will be joining us for dinner. Vegetarian and vegan options will be available. If you have specific dietary requirements, don’t hesitate to get in touch with the organizers. We aim to include precarious scholars—please contact the organizers if you need support or would like to discuss possible options. Email: RESAW25-datafiedweb[æt]uni-siegen.de

About the conference

We look forward to more than 40 presentations by over 70 researchers from 11 countries who shape the amazing program of the 6th RESAW 2025 conference. The conference will take place on June 4-6 at the University of Siegen.

The conference promises insightful discussions on current research questions related to the trends, trajectories, and genealogies of a datafied and metric-driven web. It will also foster critical dialogue on the challenges and opportunities posed by the rise of platform-driven ecosystems.

For more information about the program and detailed schedule, visit the conference website datafiedweb.net.

Follow us on social media for more updates ➞ 

 #CRC2025 #resaw25 #webhistory #webarchives #datafication #archives

The 2025 RESAW conference is organized by the Collaborative Research Centre 1187 “Media of Cooperation” at the University of Siegen in cooperation with the Centre for for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) at the University of Lux-embourg. The conference is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR).

The new summer program

We welcome our members back to the new semester and summer program.

→ our events

We are excited to announce our upcoming summer program which includes

• several workshops and conferences incl. the RESAW 2025 “The Datafied Web” conference, which doubles as the CRC’s annual conference,
• the lecture series “Unstitching Datafication,”
• three MGK Masterclasses (Workshop [Media] Practice Theory),
• the MGK Writing Retreat and Research Colloquium,
• and a Summer School.

This semester’s edition of the Research Forum will feature an event series dedicated to Science Communication & Public Engagement, including sessions on open science, communication strategies, and stakeholder engagement. 

We look forward to inspiring talks and intriguing discussion. See you in Siegen or online!

Catalina Goanta, Benjamin Peters, Jürgen Streeck and Jill Walker Rettberg are new Mercator Fellows at the CRC 1187 

The Collaborative Research Center (CRC 1187) “Media of Cooperation” welcomes four new Mercator Fellows: Catalina Goanta, Benjamin Peters, Jürgen Streeck and Jill Walker Rettberg. These outstanding researchers will contribute their scientific expertise and innovative approaches to the CRC 1187. 

About the Mercator Fellowship at the CRC 1187

The CRC 1187 awards Mercator Fellowships to outstanding researchers worldwide to extend scientific collaboration within its network. Mercator Fellows work closely for extended periods with one or more projects.  Together with its regular members, Mercator Fellows study digital, data-intensive media to develop interdisciplinary approaches further and help shape the CRC’s research programme. Including these renowned researchers strengthens the international network of the CRC 1187 and promotes the transfer of knowledge and ideas, which is of central importance for contemporary digital research at the CRC.

The Mercator Fellowship is a module within the German Research Foundation’s funding programme intended to facilitate a sustainable research exchange between the researchers of the CRC 1187 and the fellows.

About the Mercator Fellows

Exploring the new multimedia research tool “Bundle Explorer: Berühren”

with Bina E. Mohn (Center for Camera Ethnography, Berlin) and Astrid Vogelpohl (University of Siegen)

Last December, the CRC researchers from project B05 presented their self-developed new research platform, the “Bundle Explorer”, to the research community. During a one-day workshop, they discussed how to use this tool and tested new exploration paths and ways of thinking. With the Bundle Explorer, the researchers are making an important contribution to the development of practice-theoretical methods at the CRC.

About the research platform Bundle Explorer

The Bundle Explorer is a multimedia research platform developed by Bina E. Mohn, Astrid Vogelpohl and Pip Hare. With this research tool, the team aims to contribute to the understanding of situated sensory practices in digitized everyday worlds.

The researchers developed the platform as part of their camera ethnographic research on sensory practices in digital childhood. Their methodology was based on Ludwig Wittgenstein and his language game approach. With the Bundle Explorer, short films can be played back and the sensory practices they reveal can be examined more closely. The name Bundle Explorer refers to Theo Schatzki’s theory (2016) that human action and sensory practices and the environments in which they take place form bundles. As suggested by Schatzki, the Bundle Explorer can be used to examine these bundles more closely and understand them better.

The “Bundle Explorer: Berühren” presented in the Blicklabor “Berührung” is the prototype of the new research tool. With this prototype, we researchers can discover and explore situations and ways of touching in digital childhood in a variety of ways.

The “Bundle Explorer: Berühren” is based on 60 short films from six years of camera-ethnographic research observations on the everyday family life of young children. The films were ‘edited’ from many hours of video material and show in particular moments of touch. In the Bundle Explorer, these films are divided into six categories of touch, which reflect the diversity of forms of touch in young children’s everyday digital lives:

acoustic touch
immersive touch
body touch
thing touch
gestural touch
Display touch

These categories allow Bundle Explorer users to explore the films in their own way.

About the Blicklabor „Berührung“

For the camera ethnography, Blicklabore refers to encounters , „Blicke als Blicke zu reflektieren und in konkreten Forschungs­zusammenhängen damit zu experimentieren“ (Mohn 2023, S. 198).

The B05 project team invited the Wittgenstein expert Birgit Griesecke, the science sociologist Klaus Amann and the educational scientist Jochen Lange to the Blicklabor alongside an interested specialist audience. The Blicklabor took place on December 13 at the University of Siegen (→ to the event) and offered the opportunity to get to know the „Bundle Explorer: Berührung“ in more detail and try it out in a workshop phase. While exploring the Bundle Explorer, the participants were encouraged to watch the films, track down, compare and classify children’s sensory practices and examine classifications, variants and borderline cases. The participants then discussed their individual explorations and impressions.

About the „Bundle Explorer: Berühren“ using the example of the category „acoustic touch“

The category “acoustic touch” is one of six touch categories that are explored in the “Bundle Explorer: Berühren” video material. The acoustic aspect of touch plays a special role in the films in the acoustic touch category. When selecting and compiling the films, researchers were interested in how acoustic touch can be applied and contoured.

Users end up in this category rather by chance: After selecting a video in the start tableau (image 1), the tool offers them a compilation of two film scenes (image 2) that are not yet named according to any category: In the first video, a 2-year-old child listens to music with an MP3 player; in the second video, a toddler explores a smartphone and is surprised by the ringtone melody. Descriptive approaches are used to identify bundles of practices and their material arrangements (Fig. 3) and the question arises as to what these films have in common.

The Bundle Explorer then invites users to explore further “variations” (image 4) and “borderline cases” (image 5) of acoustic touches. The variants include videos in which one child makes a squeaking noise with a balloon, another makes his voice vibrate and another sings with his grandmother on his cell phone (image 4). As borderline cases, the Bundle Explorer offers videos in which touching is not clearly recognizable. For example, in the video in which the adult acts acoustically but the child does not react (image 5).

All these cases serve to better understand acoustic touch in children. The researchers are particularly interested in how children are touched by the respective sounds. Based on the videos, the researchers identified three types of acoustic touch in which touching and being touched is shown through:

Music, movement and dance
Voices, conversation and singing
Noise, experiment and improvisation

However, the video material in the Bundle Explorer not only invites you to explore the questions of how acoustic touch manifests itself in children and what triggers it. The videos also invite us to imagine other forms of touch that have not yet been filmed.

About the expert contributions

The invited experts emphasized the innovative content of the research platform, which allows new approaches to sensory experiences and enables an in-depth examination of research questions relating to human sensory and action practices.

The Bundle Explorer is an important tool for praxeological research, allowing non-verbal gestures and actions to be examined from a visual perspective. With the Blicklabor, the research team has also created a convincing event format that allows a critical examination of non-verbal sensory practices and brings researching gazes and gaze differences to bear.

Similar to an Alpenföhn, as Birgit Griesecke emphasized, the Bundle Explorer brings spectacular distant views closer for a limited period of time. However, the perceptible proximity – in her comparison of the mountains – also brings with it euphoria, headaches and dizziness (after the mountains). In her opinion, it is crucial in research on sensory practices to keep the experiences present in such a way that they can be integrated into the research. For further development, she suggests including touch in research beyond everyday digital family life. This would bring the relationship between touch and digitality into focus in even greater detail.

Jochen Lange compared the Bundle Explorer to a ‘Findemaschine’ or a ‘Findespiel’, that moves between publication and research tool. For him, the function and meaning of touch represent alternative approaches with which sensory practices can be further explored with the help of the Bundle Explorer.

For Klaus Amann, the Bundle Explorer has an experimental character that opens up reflective moments and allows new insights. According to him, touch should also be questioned critically under the conditions of the digital world.

Together with the participants, the experts made numerous suggestions for advancing research into digital sensory practices and further work on the Bundle Explorer. Their suggestions included looking at sensory practices in the context of “atmospheres”, including visual touch, taking resonance into account when analyzing touch and not seeing touching and being touched as necessarily related characteristics of touch.

The B05 research team would like to thank all participants for the critical and inspiring exchange!

The link to the “Bundle Explorer: Berühren” as well as the template for creating your own Bundle Explorer (de/en) are available on request from Astrid Vogelpohl.

References

Bina E. Mohn (2023): Kamera-Ethnographie – Ethnographische Forschung im Modus des Zeigens. Transcript.

Theodore R. Schatzki (2016): Praxistheorie als flache Ontologie. In: Praxistheorie. Ein soziologisches Forschungs­programm. Transcript, S. 29-44.

Birgit Griesecke & Werner Kogge (2022): Mit Wittgenstein arbeiten. Ein Methoden Manual, Working Paper Series Collaborative Research Center 1187 Media of Cooperation, No. 24.

About the B05 research team

The project B05 „(Early) Childhood and Smartphone. Family Interaction Order, Learning Processes and Cooperation” examines sensory practices in digital childhoods and makes a fundamental contribution to understanding the cooperative constitution of the human and technical sensorium.

Astrid Vogelpohl is a researcher and conducts camera-ethnographic research on subjectivation practices in everyday digital family life.

Bina E. Mohn was a researcher in B05 until the end of 2023. She researches reflexive ethnography, visual anthropology and media. She is an expert for camera ethnography: kamera-ethnographie.de

Special Issue “Frictions: Conflicts, Controversies and Design Alternatives in Digital Valuation” of Digital Culture & Society

Edited by Marcus Burkhardt (Paderborn University), Tatjana Seitz (University of Siegen), Jonathan Kropf (University Kassel) and Carsten Ochs (University Kassel).

The latest special issue of Digital Culture & Society takes a look at frictions of digital infrastructures.

➞ See the Special Issue

About the Special Issue

Digital infrastructures often appear to run smoothly – but it is precisely in their frictions that value conflicts, power asymmetries and scope for design become apparent. The latest special issue “Frictions: Conflicts, Controversies and Design Alternatives in Digital Valuation” takes a look at these areas of tension. The issue brings together interdisciplinary perspectives from media studies, STS and sociology – and offers valuable insights into the contradictory dynamics of the digital present. Contributors include CRC members Tatjana Seitz and Marcus Burkhardt as well as our CRC speaker Carolin Gerlitz.

Editoral text:

“With the proliferation of smart devices such as smartphones, smart watches, and smart speakers as well as the ongoing push toward smart cities, humans, technologies, and environments have become entangled in increasingly complex yet seemingly frictionless infrastructures of datafication and computation.

A seemingly frictionless user experience, however, conceals the contradictions, power asymmetries, and polarisations that shape our digital cultures. This issue of Digital Culture & Society takes the notion of frictions as a starting point for a situated analysis of our digital present. Frictions are sites where criticism is sparked, value conflicts are negotiated, and design alternatives are explored. By bringing together research from media studies, science and technology studies (STS), and sociology, this issue begins to synthesise and systematise the structural inconsistencies that frictions expose.”

Co-Design Workshop on “Social Interaction in Semi-Automated Traffic”

by Shadan Sadeghian (University of Siegen) and Md Akib Shahriar Khan (University of Siegen)

Are you interested in sharing your experiences, ideas, and perspectives on communication and collaboration in evolving traffic systems? We seek participants for our user study on “Co-Design Workshop on Social Interaction in Semi-Automated Traffic”, led .

Central Information

Da️te: Wednesday, March 5, 2025
Time: 1.00 pm – 4.30 pm
Location: University of Siegen,  Kohlbettstraße 15, 57072 Siegen

Download PDF

About the workshop

This Co-Design Workshop will explore how road users – pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, and others – interact in semi-automated traffic environments. Through creative and interactive activities, participants can share their experiences, ideas, and perspectives on communication and collaboration in evolving traffic systems.

Who can participate?

How to apply?

To appreciate your time and contributions, participants will receive a compensation of €40. Spots are limited, so please register as soon as possible using the following link: ➞ register here. 

Selected participants will be contacted with further details.

“Media Climate Justice: Research, Skillsharing, Hacking”

organized by Julia Bee (Ruhr-Universität Bochumg & SFB 1187) and the Research at Risk working group

How does media shape our understanding of the climate crisis? What role do they play in activism and political mobilization? The Spring School “Media Climate Justice: Research, Skillsharing, Hacking” (April 11-13, 2025, Ruhr University Bochum) invites you to discuss these questions in a practical way. Organized by the Research at Risk working group, the Spring School offers workshops, inputs and networking opportunities for all interested parties from science, journalism, activism and art.

➞ Summer School website

Central Info

April 11 – 13, 2025

AK Research at Risk
Department of Media Studies
Ruhr University Bochum
Universitätsstr. 150
44780 Bochum 

Registration: until March 31, 2025 via email to mail[æt]mediaclimatejustice.org

→ Program

SFB dissertations honoured with the Dirlmeier Foundation Prize

Christoph Borbach (University Siegen) And Sarah Rüller (University Siegen)

 We congratulate our members on being awarded the Dirlmeier Foundation Prize for their outstanding research work.

→ to the complete press release of the University of Siegen (only in German)

About the award ceremony

Recognising the achievements of young researchers is an essential concern for the University of Siegen. Several university prizes were awarded in a festive setting in November and February. In addition to the Dirlmeier Foundation’s sponsorship award to SFB members Christoph Borbach and Sarah Rüller, other graduates were honoured by the University of Siegen, the Olpe district, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce and the DAAD for their outstanding work and extraordinary commitment. The award winners came together with their families and friends, the award-giving institutions and the laudatory speakers at the new Student Service Centre in Siegen city centre.

‘Promoting young academics is a central component of the University of Siegen. I am delighted that we are able to honour outstanding work and young people for their commitment, interest and professional achievements,’ said University Rector Prof. Dr Stefanie Reese.

About the dissertations

Christoph Borbach: Delay – Media Histories, 1850-1950

→ available here (only in German)

In his dissertation Christoph Borbach examines delay, the propagation time of signals. Delay can be understood as a volatile actor with its own media history. Delay-based media such as sonography, sonar or radar have far-reaching implications for current media cultures. Historically, however, the datafication of environments and bodies as a function of transmission times first had to prove itself in practice. Christoph Borbach presents nine case studies of the early temporalization of spaces and bodies in contexts such as medicine, the postal service, the military, and computer technology. In doing so, he innovatively sheds light on the history of media, culture, knowledge, and practice of the actor delay—from the first media of remote sensing in the 19th century to infrastructures of processing big data in real time. 

Sarah Rüller: Moving Beyond the WEIRD: Lessons from an Amazigh Community in Shaping Pluralistic Digital Futures

→ available here

In her dissertation Sarah Rüller critically examines the complexities of conducting Western digital research in non-Western contexts through an ethnographic case study in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco. The study highlights challenges related to postcolonial power structures, extractivism, and the impact of technocapitalism, challenging dominant frameworks of development and sustainability. By exploring the intersection of digital technologies, literacy, and community participation, the research argues for a shift from ICT4D (Information and Communication Technologies for Development) to ICT4R (Information and Communication Technologies for Recovery).

Through a participatory approach that integrates co-design, speculative design, and storytelling, the dissertation examines how local communities engage with digital infrastructures and navigate the tensions between digital inclusion, authenticity, and external exploitation. The study critically reflects on the role of human computer interaction (HCI) and design research in promoting ethically grounded, situated, and plural knowledge production. It also calls for a re-evaluation of academic research practices and urges a move towards more sustainable and community-driven methodologies. By advocating for multiliteracies and alternative epistemologies, the thesis contributes to shaping inclusive digital futures that respect local knowledge, agency, and cultural diversity.

About the researchers