GRK 3064:  Technologies of Witnessing: Media and Cultural Practices

• Subject Area: Art History, Music, Theatre and Media Studies ; Social and Cultural Anthropology, Non-European Cultures, Jewish Studies and Religious Studies
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 530711893

The Research Training Group investigates how witnessing is changing as a media and cultural practice. It analyzes the ways in which specific technologies of witnessing are emerging, particularly in digitally networked media environments, and asks about the influences these developments have on contemporary cultures. Whether it is witness videos on social media, contemporary witness holograms, theater tribunals, forensic investigations or non-human witnesses in the visual arts – such phenomena point to a fundamental change in forms of witnessing. They represent a dynamic and multifaceted subject of research that requires new perspectives in media and cultural studies. The central research idea is to introduce a change in perspective compared to existing research: Whereas previously the focus has primarily been on the witness as a singular subject of knowledge – thereby narrowing the view anthropocentrically, and often also eurocentrically – the project’s emphasis is on the technologies of witnessing. This means that the research group analyzes the media, cultural and aesthetic practices and conditions of witnessing. Witnessing is thus understood mainly in generative and relational terms: Personal acts, but also testimonies of non-human entities, will be studied in their constitutive connectedness with technical devices, arrangements, infrastructures and environments as well as with cultural contexts. The project follows a broad understanding of technology that includes cultural and corporeal aspects as well as media and machines. The research process takes place in three interconnected working areas, which are dedicated to 1) the formations and constellations of knowledge, 2) the processes and arrangements and 3) the human-machine relations. The project’s qualification concept creates benefits for the doctoral students by embedding their projects in a structured, interdisciplinary study program that enables students to represent their own discipline and to connect to research discourses in the neighboring disciplines involved. At the same time, the project opens up scope for independent research paths and ensures an equality-oriented and diversity-sensitive working context. The Research Training Group also emphasizes the social relevance of the topic and hopes to provide new impulses in public discourses (‘third mission’). For knowledge of witnessing technologies also contributes to a better understanding of practices that are crucial for dealing with political and historical crises.

• DFG Programme: Research Training Groups
• Applicant Institution: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Christian Tedjasukmana
• Participating Researchers: Professorin Carna Brkovic, Ph.D.; Professorin Dr. Franziska Fay; Professorin Dr. Linda Hentschel; Professor Dr. Matthias Krings; Professorin Dr. Gabriele Schabacher; Professorin Dr. Alexandra Schneider; Professor Dr. Marc Siegel; Professorin Dr. Cecilia Valenti; Professor Dr. Benjamin Wihstutz