Terms of Media

Conference, 17.–19.06.2015, Leuphana University of Lüneburg
In­itia­ted by Götz Bach­mann, Ti­mon Beyes, and Wen­dy Chun

“Media determine our situation”, Friedrich Kittler infamously wrote in his introduction to Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. Although this dictum is certainly extreme – and media archaeology has been critiqued for being overly dramatic and focused on technological developments – it propels us to keep thinking about media as setting the terms for which we live, socialize, communicate, organize, do scholarship etc. After all, as Kittler continued in his opening statement almost 30 years ago, our situation, “in spite or because” of media, “deserves a description.” What, then, are the terms – the limits, the conditions, the periods, the relations, the phrases – of media?  And, what is the relationship between these terms and determination?

This project, which entails two international conferences, to take place at Brown University and at Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany, and a series of publications based on these conferences, seeks to repose and update this fundamental question of media theory. Does our situation indicate a new term, understood as temporal shifts of mediatic conditioning, which deserves a re-description? How and on what terms are media changing, reflecting changes in media itself? What are the terms of conditions that we negotiate as subjects of media? How do the terms of media theory relate to such conditions? What are the terms of conditions of media theory itself?

Program

– June 17, 2015
07:00 pm

KEYNOTE
Igor Vamos
The Yes Men
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Reception

Launch of meson press

– June 18, 2015
10:00–11:30

FABRICATIONS
Ian Bogost
Georgia Institute of Technology
Fox Harrell
MIT
Moderator: Mathias Fuchs
Centre for Digital Cultures

11:45–01:15

SUBJECTS
Wendy Chun
Brown University
Florian Cramer
Willem de Kooning Academy/Hogeschool Rotterdam
Moderator: Clemens Apprich
Centre for Digital Cultures

2:30–04:00

ATMOSPHERES
Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos
University of Westminster
Stefan Rieger
Ruhr University Bochum
Moderator: Christane Heibach

04:15–05:45

FLESH
Inge Baxmann
University of Leipzig
Mark Hansen
Duke University
Moderator: Erich Hörl
Centre for Digital Cultures

– June 19, 2015
10:00–11:30

PHYSICS
Peter Galison
Harvard University
Christina Vagt
Humboldt University Berlin
Moderator: Paul Feigelfeld
Centre for Digital Cultures

11:45-01:15

MARKETS
Philip Mirowski
University of Notre Dame
Jens Schröter
Universität Bonn
Moderator: Armin Beverungen
Centre for Digital Cultures

2:30-04:00

POLITICS
Melissa Gregg
Intel
Hito Steyerl
Berlin University of the Arts
Moderator: Andrew Lison
Brown University

04:15–05:45

COLOR
Marc Glöde
ETH Zürich
Carolyn Kane
Brown University
Moderator: Boris Traue
Centre for Digital Cultures

06:00–07:00

SUMMARY ROUNDTABLE
Andreas Broeckmann
Centre for Digital Cultures
Nishant Shah
Centre for Digital Cultures
Ellen Rooney
Brown University
Paul Feigelfeld


During the conference:
Multi-Channel Video Installation by Nina Wakeford and Robert Rapoport