Project Details
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GRK 1479:  Automatisms - Emerging Structures in Information Technology, Media and Culture

Subject Area Art History, Music, Theatre and Media Studies
Term from 2008 to 2017
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 46753651
 
Final Report Year 2017

Final Report Abstract

Automatisms are defined as processes that largely elude conscious control. They exist on the level of individual and collective action as well as in interactions with technology. Since they are rooted in repetition ‒ rather than in creativity, planning, or design ‒ automatisms are close to the mechanical. At the same time, these processes do not function like technical automata. There are neither prior definitions nor programming. Processes of habitualization and conventionalization can serve as examples; conventions and habits grind themselves in; so it is the execution itself, and the scattered activity of many, that create the structure. These observations turn automatisms into an interesting model of development. In many cases automatisms seem to become potent wherever planning and design retreat. Virtually behind the backs of those involved, they generate new structures. Demonstrating these findings constituted the goal of the project's first phase. In a broad spec- trum of exemplary cases, the dissertation projects of the graduate school explored automatisms in the media, information technology, and culture. During its second phase the graduate school pursued this approach with a changed focus. One key result showed that automatisms help to reduce complexity. As complexity is seen as one of the main problems of contemporary societies, this finding lent additional relevance to our topic. It enabled us to connect concrete questions of media and technology development on the one hand and theoretical perspectives on culture, society, and technology on the other. Pursuing this interdisciplinary project, faculty advisors and doctoral students came from literature and culture studies, sociology, media studies, film studies, and computer science. The results of the graduate school's research have been published in 8 monographs and 11 anthologies, which are also available online (public domain). The research training group has established "automatisms" as a new concept in media and culture studies. In reading automatisms as cultural techniques beyond consciousness, in- tention, and planning, the graduate school has opened a distinct and original field of research.

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