News
50 Jahre Universität Siegen, 50 Jahre Forschung. Begleitet von Live-Musik konnten sich Besucher*innen des Fests der „Offene Uni“ am letzten Samstag die Sonderforschungsbereiche 1187 „Medien der Kooperation“ und 1472 „Transformationen des Populären“ der Universität Siegen kennenlernen. Unter dem gemeinsamen Thema „Unsere digitale Gegenwart: neue Formen des Populären und der Kooperation“ gaben vier unserer Teilprojekte im sonnenbeschienenen Hof des Unteren Schlosses Einblick in die Vielfalt der Medien der Kooperation.
Neben dem Gespräch mit unseren Forschenden konnten Besucher*innen mit vergangenen und aktuellen Chatbots interagieren und mehr über die Forschung zu synthetischen Akteuren erfahren, die in unserem Teilprojekts B08 „Agentic Media: Formen der Semi-Autonomie“ erfolgt. Wie viel Alexa mithört und versteht, konnten Besucher*innen wiederum vom Teilprojekt B06 „Un/erbetene Beobachtung in Interaktion: „Intelligente Persönliche Assistenten“ (IPA)“ erfahren. Früh übte es sich beim Stand von Projekt B05, welches die Interaktion von Babys und Kindern zusammen mit den Eltern erforscht. Über kleine Filme und Fotos zeigte das Projekt B05 „Frühe Kindheit und Smartphone. Familiäre Interaktionsordnung, Lernprozesse und Kooperation“, wie Kleinkinder mit digitalen Geräten umgehen. Digitale Medien spielen auch in der Medizin eine wichtige Rolle. Unser Projekt A06 „Visuell integrierte klinische Kooperation“ präsentierte den selbstentwickelten Prototypen, der die Symptome von Bandscheibenproblemen zeigt.
Wir hoffen, dass wir allen Besucher*innen einen Eindruck davon vermitteln konnten, auf welcher breiten Front sich digitale Medien als kooperative Werkzeuge, Plattformen und Infrastrukturen zeigen und danken für das Interesse und die anregenden Gespräche.
Recent discussions in German media studies are renewing the long tradition of conceptualising the ‘extensions of man’ or the ‘extensions of the body’ as devices enabling the emergence of technical instruments and/or of media. Whilst most of the earlier protagonist of this tradition focused exclusively on the extensions of human extremities and the brain, only a minor tradition mentioned ‘containers’ as technical and figurative externalisations of the rump and of whole bodies.
The new publication »From Instruments to Containers, from Containers to Media: The Extensions of the Body« in the Working Paper Series (No. 21, March 2022) by Erhard Schüttpelz focuses on the long drift from instruments to containers to media. Building upon research by British archaeologist Clive Gamble on the ambiguities of technical and figurative containers, the paper aims at developing a new prehistory of today’s media and computer interfaces from a media studies perspective.
Prof. Dr. Erhard Schüttpelz is principal investigator of the subprojects A01 »Digital Network Technologies between Specialization and Generalization« and P02 »Media of Praxeology II: History of audio-visual sequence analysis as a methodology« of the Collaborative Research Center 1187 »Media of Cooperation«.
The paper »From Instruments to Containers, from Containers to Media: The Extensions of the Body« is published as part of the Working Paper Series of the CRC 1187, which promotes inter- and transdisciplinary media research and provides an avenue for rapid publication and dissemination of ongoing research located at or associated with the CRC. The purpose of the series is to circulate in-progress research to the wider research community beyond the CRC. All Working Papers are accessible via the website or can be ordered in print by sending an email to: karina.kirsten[æt]uni-siegen.de
Our lecture series on “Testing Infrastructures” starts tomorrow.
From QR codes used to verify COVID-19 vaccination status’ to cloud software used to train machine learning models, infrastructures of testing are proliferating. Whilst the infrastructures themselves come in different forms – from ‘off the shelf’ systems to tailor-made technologies – they all have a capacity to generate specific ‘test situations’ involving an array of different actors from ‘ghost’ workers to python scripts. An increasing reliance on digital platforms, protocols, tools, and procedures has led to a redistribution of testing itself: not just where testing takes place, and who performs the testing, but who has access to, and control over, mechanisms for testing, test protocols and of course, test results. In this lecture series, we focus on the practices making up the test infrastructures and explore different perspectives to make sense of the realities enacted by testing.
Our exploration of test practices is interwoven with the search for test media that bind actors together or create barriers; that enable cooperation or declare it impossible. Thus, our guest lecturers will reflect on a wide range of questions regarding ‘testing infrastructures’: How do testing infrastructures engender the construction of specific testing routines and practices? What kinds of affective experiences, reactions, and responses are generated through testing? How do testing infrastructures fade into the background, pointing to a tapestry of maintenance and repair practices? Lastly, what are the ways in which we can evaluate the role of digital infrastructures more broadly?
What novel test methods can be developed and actually ‘tested’ to gain a better understanding of how infrastructures work?
The lecture series is organized by the Collaborative Research Center (SFB 1187) “Media of Cooperation”.
Contact: Dr. Johannes Schick (johannes.schick[æt]uni-siegen.de)
The SFB 1187 uploads video recordings of past and upcoming events
Video recordings of past conferences are now available for streaming on our new ‘Media‘ site. The recordings include individual talks and panels from our last year’s International Geomedia Conference “Off the Grid”, contributions from our annual conferences and other international conferences. In addition, you find short project videos wich give insights into the research work our PhD candidates at the integrated graduate school are conducting (MGK). Recordings of future events will be published here as well. Stay tuned.
The CRC “Media of Cooperation” condemns Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. We are deeply concerned for and stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine, fellow academics, our colleagues, students, their friends and families. Further, we express our solidarity and respect for all people in and beyond Russia who are resisting and are being subjected to severe repressive measures by the regime.
“The Russian attack on Ukraine is profoundly shocking and our thoughts are with all the people affected by it. They have our solidarity and support. The university and the academic communities offer a series of support services in which we as researchers can participate”, says Prof. Dr. Carolin Gerlitz, deputy speaker of the CRC.
In line with the statement of the German Society for Media Studies (Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft e. V.), the CRC is convinced that universities and research are and must remain characterized by international exchange and cooperation. Therefore, support cannot be subject to any national exclusions.
The board of the German Society for Media Studies shares a list of aid and support programs, compiled by the society’s Commission for Good Work in Research (Kommission für gute Arbeit in der Wissenschaft), supports the working group “AK Ukraine und Flucht” as well as the statement of the “AG Gender / Queer Studies und Medienwissenschaft”.
Below we share links to above mentioned initiatives as well as links to statements and support by other institutions.
University Siegen
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
Overview of all statements an information released by the DFG
Information for researchers No. 17 (3 March 2022): “Geflüchtete Forschende: DFG weitet Unterstützung aus” and further information and support for “Geflüchtete Forschende” (DE) and “Refugee Researchers: DFG Expands Support” and further information and support for “Refugee Researchers” (EN)
Statement “Alliance of Science Organisations in Germany: solidarity with partners in Ukraine – consequences for science and the humanities” of the Alliance of Science Organisations in Germany
German Society for Media Studies (Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft e. V.)
Working group “AK Ukraine und Flucht”, an initiative established out of the society’s Commission for Good Work in Research (Kommission für gute Arbeit in der Wissenschaft). More info on the initiative can be found here (in: DE / EN / UK / RU). For support, joining and sharing of information: akukraineflucht[æt]gfmedienwissenschaft.de and Email list: ak-flucht-und-ukraine[æt]lists.riseup.net
FG DeKolonial e.V.
What do images from the web and social media connected to Covid-19 testing tell us about issues, big and small, in the world? And how can they be repurposed for the study of testing situations?
In the hands-on workshop “Test Society/Covid-19” international partakers will explore how images on Twitter can be used to account for the unfolding of issues across various scales, ranging from everyday moments to media outrage provoking events. The workshop is hosted by Media of Cooperation and will take place on 16th and 17th of December 2021.
As it builds on previous workshops at the Universities of Warwick, Amsterdam and St. Gallen, the workshop will offer researchers in STS, media studies and associated fields an opportunity to engage in and reflect on interpretative analysis of visual data in an interdisciplinary set-up crossing social, design and data-intensive methods. This event is organised by Noortje Marres (University of Warwick), Liliana Bounegru (King’s College London), Gabriele Colombo (Politecnico di Milano), Carolin Gerlitz (University of Siegen), Jonathan Gray (King’s College London).
More information can be found here.
How and why did people come to deny the materiality of the digital? What can we learn by recovering it? What if we rethink digital materialities as ongoing cooperative accomplishments?
From December 1–3 2021 historians, media theorists and information scholars come together for the online conference “Digital Matters” to examine socio-material constituents of digital systems and artifacts. Tackling the presupposition of digital immateriality as a misconception but at the same time as a productive site for interdisciplinary scholarly inquiry into media and data practices, the conference counters the idea of disembodied algorithms floating rhetorically in an ethereal cloud of big data. With a keynote lecture by Jonathan Sterne (McGill University) titled “Some Species of Materiality”, six moderated sessions and twelve international speakers, the conference promises a deep dive into digital matters and (im)materialities.
Conceptualized as an online conference with hybrid elements, most speakers will partake online with the organizers and several others coming together onsite in Siegen.
The conference is organized by Thomas Haigh (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee & Siegen University), Valérie Schafer (University of Luxembourg), Axel Volmar (Siegen University) and Sebastian Giessmann (Siegen University). The event is part of the CRC projects A01 and A02.
For more information see:
https://www.mediacoop.uni-siegen.de/en/events/conference-digital-matters-a01/
Once again scholars come together in the CRC annual conference to share their research. This year’s conference “Re-Situating Learning: Making Sense of Data, Media and Dis/Unities of Learning Practices” is all about learning. This is no coincidence as it marks the 30th anniversary of Jean Lave’s and Etienne Wenger’s book “Situated Learning”. Since its release, the way of learning as a social practice has changed dramatically. Mostly due the digitization of media, which brought new concepts of learning and, thus, establishing new communities of practice that themselves are characterized by ephemerality and fluidity as fragmented, graduated and networked publics. Organized by the Collaborative Research Center “Media of Cooperation” the conference is planning to reexamine the relations between learning and digital media from various angles. International keynote speakers will present their findings on how the digital era has changed the social practice of learning. This involves examinations ranging from practices of un-learning certain outdated methods, over human interactions with machines to babies falling asleep.
The annual conference takes place on 25–29 October 2021. It is structured in an evening event opening the conference with a keynote by Jean Lave, and four thematic panels including keynotes around the topics “Intercorporeality and Learning” (Keynote: Thomas Alkemeyer), “Decolonizing Learning, Rethinking Research” (Keynote: Koen Leurs), “Cross-Community Learning” (Keynote: Gerhard Fischer) and “Human-Machine-Learning” (Keynote: Mercedes Bunz).
For more information and a detailed program, please see the conference website.
The University of Siegen is an interdisciplinary and cosmopolitan university with currently about 18,000 students and a range of subjects from the humanities, social sciences and economics to natural, engineering and life sciences. With over 2,000 employees, we are one of the largest employers in the region and offer a unique environment for teaching, research and further education.
At the University of Siegen, as of 1 January 2022 the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1187 „Media of Cooperation“ offers
two Short-Term Scholarships
to promote the work of early-carrier researchers. The duration of the scholarships is 12 months. A longer-term collaboration with the goal of a doctorate within the CRC is envisaged. The basic amount of the scholarship is based on the maximum rate of the DFG (1.365,- EUR). In addition, an allowance for material expenses and, if applicable, a child allowance will be paid.
CRC 1187 “Media of Cooperation“
The CRC is an interdisciplinary research network consisting of 15 projects and more than 60 scientists from the fields of media studies, science and technology studies, ethnology, sociology, linguistics and literature studies, computer science and medicine as well as history, education and engineering. It has been funded by the DFG since 2016. The CRC investigates the emergence and dissemination of digitally networked, data-intensive media and understands these as cooperatively accomplished conditions for cooperation. The research of the participating subprojects focuses on data practices that are explored in the situated interplay of media practices, infrastructures and public spheres.
The short-term fellowship program of the CRC provides national and international doctoral students the opportunity to further develop their research project in the CRC, to get to know participating researchers and to exchange ideas with them. The research projects of the scholarship holders should be thematically related to the subprojects of the CRC, so that their work can be supported by the principal investigators and their teams. Scholarship holders are assigned to the Integrated Research Training Group (MGK) of the CRC and benefit from its structured training program. The CRC offers scholarship holders an international environment for interdisciplinary media research as well as an extensive program of events and training in ethnographic, digital, sensor-based and linguistic methods.
Further information on the CRC’s research agenda and subprojects can be found at https://www.mediacoop.uni-siegen.de/en.
Your Profile
- Relevant, above-average degree in one of the disciplines participating in or related to the CRC, preferably in media and cultural studies, sociology or in the field of socio- or business informatics, human-computer interaction or information systems (equivalent to a Master’s degree, Magister, Diplom or Lehramt/Staatsexamen Sek. II)
- Individual research project in one of the above-mentioned disciplines within the subject area of the CRC. Ideally, you can assign the project to one of the subareas of the CRC –
infrastructures, publics or praxeology - Interest in methods of media research, the analysis of data practices and an affinity for working in an interdisciplinary research environment
- Willingness to participate in the international event program of the CRC and the MGK
- Very good written and spoken English language skills
Your Tasks
Expectations of successful candidates:
- Regular participation and involvement in the events and the training program of the MGK (colloquia, workshops, summer schools, methodology workshops, interdisciplinary groups)
- Presentation of preliminary results of the individual research project within the MGK colloquium
Equal opportunities and diversity are promoted and actively practiced at the University of Siegen. Applications from women are highly welcome and will be given special consideration in accordance with the federal state equality law. We also welcome applications from people with different personal, social and cultural backgrounds, people with disabilities and those of equal status.
For further information contact Christoph Borbach (Tel.: +49(0)271 740-5252)
E-Mail: Christoph.Borbach[æt]uni-siegen.de
Please send your application documents (letter of motivation, curriculum vitae, copies of certificates, 5-10-page outline of a project idea) by 2 November 2021 to Christoph Borbach, Herrengarten 3, 57072 Siegen, Germany. Alternatively, you can also send your application in a single PDF file by e-mail (max. 5 MB) to Christoph.Borbach[æt]uni-siegen.de. Please note that risks to confidentiality and unauthorized access by third parties cannot be ruled out when communicating by unencrypted e-mail.
Information about the University of Siegen can be found on our homepage: www.uni-siegen.de.
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