Interdisciplinary Conference Organized by the Graduate Program "Topology of Technology"

Technische Universität Darmstadt

March 3 - 5, 2011

Conference information

Anmeldung/Registration form

Conference Sections

Conference Program

Keynote Abstracts

Section Abstracts

Alphabetical List of Lecturers

City Map with Locations

Conference Poster

Taking stock at the end of the first funding period, the graduate program "Topologies of Technology", based at the TU Darmstadt, will host a conference to reflect on current projects and develop future perspectives. Since October 2006 the program has been supporting doctoral and postdoctoral projects located in a diverse field of disciplines ranging from the humanities and social sciences to engineering, sports science and informatics. The projects are geared towards examining interrelations between space and technology from different disciplinary and methodological perspectives.

The research in the graduate program is focussed on investigating how technologically constituted spaces affect the experience and understanding of both space and technology. It is one of the premises of the research carried out in Darmstadt to conceptualize technology as a "material dispositive" which shapes space and place, and many of the projects focus on the social effects and praxeological dimensions of spatial and spatializing technologies, and in particular of current and emergent technologies. Researchers within the program engage in an interdisciplinary dialogue to explore the possibility of developing the common methods and categories required to formulate precise hypotheses.

The conference aims at intensifying the interdisciplinary cooperation characterizing the program's work by initiating contacts and debate between the Darmstadt researchers and colleagues working on similar topics. To discuss research projects the conference will be organized according to the format of a series of master classes: along the lines of seven topics researchers from Darmstadt and other institutions are invited to present their work in sections accompanied and chaired by two senior researchers. These researchers will form tandems consisting of invited specialists and supervisors based in Darmstadt, offering critical reflection, support and perspectives for future research.

Master Class topics

Section 1    Incorporation and Appropriation

Master: Tom Misa (University of Minnesota)        

Incorporation and appropriation examines how technologies, perceptions and practices of space are internalized (self-perception and perception of others, observation, mimesis, processes of transformation and translation, the history of consumption, logistics of goods, autonomy and coercion).

Section 2    Normalization and Subversion

Master: Bruno Besana (Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry)

Normalization and subversion looks at dispositions and ideological inscriptions of technologically constituted spaces (discourses and dispositives of power, reversal, dissolution and undermining of power relations, emergence, categories of evaluation).

Section 3    Mobility and Interaction

Master: Sven Kesselring (Technische Universität München)

Mobility and interaction analyzes interrelations between social practices and mobilizing technologies (discourses of mobility, the shrinking of time and space, everyday mobility, migration, transmigration, multilocality, varimobility, air traffic and security).

Section 4    Networking and Developments of Infrastructures

Master: Uwe Klingauf (Technische Universität Darmstadt)

Networking and developments of infrastructures explores dimensions and actualizations of the material structure of technological spatiality (visualization of networks and traffic infrastructures, modeling, mapping, network analysis, interdependent developments of infrastructures and spaces).

Section 5    Persistence and Discontinuity

Master: Kurt Imhof (University of Zurich)

Persistence and discontinuity  deals with procedural/temporal aspects such as the genealogies, coincidences and ruptures of technological spatiality (determinacy and contingency, intrinsic and extrinsic logics of processes, the dialectics of continuity and discontinuity, tradition vs. innovation, memory and commemoration).

Section 6    Navigation and Orientation

Master: Cornelius Schubert (Technische Universität Berlin)

Navigation and orientation adresses the perception of movement and practices of orientation in technologically constituted spaces (spatial orientation and the perception of movement in everyday life, technology-based spatial/motion data and virtual reality, "hybrid spaces", direction of attention and learning movement and motion).

Section 7    Imagination and Construction

Master: Martina Heßler (Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg)

Imagination and construction discusses relations of fiction and reality in discourses on space and technology (cultural constructions, changing social perceptions, discursive construction, fictionality and mediality, imagining technologically constituted spaces, authenticity and staging).

Keynotes

The conference will be framed by two keynote lectures. The introductory keynote will be given by the philosopher Petra Gehring, who will reflect on the key concept of the "material dispositive" to reconsider the achievements and developments of interdisciplinary research on technology at the TU Darmstadt. In his final keynote, the historian Wolfgang König will discuss whether concepts taken from the field of the history of technology can be productively applied to research on the relations between technology and space.

Information on the graduate program
Further information can be found on the graduate program:

http://www.tdt.tu-darmstadt.de

Conference language

Presentations have to be held in English. The discussion language is kept open depending on the masters and speakers preferences.

Conference fee
The following conference fee will be charged:
Students: 30 €
Non-Students: 100 €
During the conference drinks and snacks will be served.

In addition there is an opportunity to take part in a common dinner on Friday, March 4th, 2011. Dinner charges will be 30 €.

Registration

Please fill out the registration form available on our website and transfer the corresponding fee before February 1st, 2011.

Contact

topology2011@ifs.tu-darmstadt.de