Machinology

I am pretty happy about spending some time in Germany over the summer– and not just any trip, but as Senior Fellow at the Leuphana University Media Cultures of Computer Simulation-centre (MECS). MECS is one of the exciting developments at Leuphana (in Lüneburg) and in Germany, collecting some of the most interesting media theorists, analysts and historians. Led by Claus Pias and Martin Warnke, MECS’s project description tells the story of mutually informing investigations of media culture and science. Indeed, MECS presents itself as part of analysis of changes in scientific methods but also rather fundamental questions as to the nature of scientific knowledge itself. Furthermore, digital media becomes an agent in this transformation. “Digital media develops a medial obstinacy; it generates and at the same time processes problems which in the past were often inaccessible, either by analysis or experimentation.”

MECS’s annual themes for the coming years are found here – for this year, the focus is on Wissen referring to knowledge and the media epistemology of computer simulations, followed next year by Rechnen: to calculate/calculation.

In this context my own project focuses on the double bind of the media epistemological (e.g. sensors) and the environmental questions (such as smog) in a theoretical context of media materialism. I have been interested in how to expand media materialism to a wider set of material questions that include media ecology and the environmental too, partly in the context of Geology of Media. I also need to write a couple of commissioned articles on Friedrich Kittler during the summer. In addition, with Paul Feigelfeld we will edit a short e-issue focusing on Kittler for Theory, Culture & Society.