Servicenavigation

Project Details

Back

Projekt Print View

Animals and processing of data. The animal turn in media studies

Subject Area Theatre and Media Studies
Term from 2015 to 2023
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 269221844
 
Final Report Year 2023

Final Report Abstract

In the first funding phase (Das verdatete Tier, 1st funding phase 2015-2018), the animal was of interest not as a motif that could be described in cultural studies or as an experiential space for alterity located in the lifeworld, but as a symmetrical component in relation to other agents and altered environments. This status has been and is currently being discussed in a powerful field of research that has established itself internationally under titles such as "Animal Studies", "Human-Animal-Studies" or "Cultural and Literary Animal Studies" and is increasingly becoming more institutionalised. The aim was to take a look at the preconditions and possibilities as well as the chances and limits of an emerging "animal turn" in media studies. Based on the preoccupation with the animal, its situation in changed environments and the suspicion associated with it, a new and integrative research paradigm took shape that can be transferred to the human sphere and thus made fruitful for media studies as a whole. The resulting demand for cross-species collaboration was the focus of the continued project in the second funding phase (Artenübergreifende Kollaborationen, 2nd Funding Phase 2019- 2022). In addition to humans, animals and technologies, other actors such as artefacts, plants, fungi, insects and microbes were also brought into focus, so that common position definitions in increasingly mediatised environments were once again called into question. It could be shown that against the background of theoretical offers from the fields of human-animal studies, but also post- and transhumanism, cross-species collaborations and communications gained contour and ideas of agency changed. In all of the sample areas researched, fundamental questions are raised not only about the current and future challenges for society, but also for culture and media theory: the state of new media, which are invisible, pervasive and ubiquitous, and which increasingly rely on big data concepts, artificial intelligence and virtuality for their realisation, force us to rethink the positions of humans, animals and other species in relation to the technical environment. This work was and is at the same time an opportunity for the discipline to further raise its profile in the formation of public opinion.

Publications

 
 

Additional Information

© 2025 DFG Disclaimer / Copyright / Privacy Policy

Textvergrößerung und Kontrastanpassung