Get to know our Fellows: Bart Penders
Get to know our current fellows and gain an impression of their research.
In a new series of short videos, we asked them to introduce themselves, talk about their work at c:o/re, the impact of their research on society and give book recommendations.
You can now watch the fifth video of Dr. Bart Penders, PhD in Science and Technology Studies and Associate Professor in ‘Biomedicine and Society’ at Maastricht University, on our YouTube channel:
Check out our media section or our YouTube channel to have a look at the other videos.
Objects of Research: Erica Onnis
Today we continue our „Objects of Research“ series with a picture by c:o/re Alumni Fellow Dr. Erica Onnis, whose research focuses on the nature of emergent phenomena, and the relation between the notion of emergence and those of reduction, novelty, complexity, and causation.
“When asked about the fundamental object for my reaserch practice, I immediately thought of my computer, which seemed the obvious answer given that I read, study, and write on it most of the time.
Upon further reflection, however, I realized that on my computer, I just manage the initial and final phases of my research, namely gathering information and studying on the one hand, and writing papers on the other.
Yet, between these two phases, there is a crucial intermediate step that truly embodied the essence of research, for me: the reworking, systematization, organization, and re-elaboration of what I have read and studied, as well as the formulation of new ideas and hypothesis. These processes never occur on the computer but always on paper.
Therefore, the essential objects for my research are notebooks, sticky notes, notepads, pens, and pencils.”
Would you like to find out more about our Objects of Research series at c:o/re? Then take a look at the pictures by Benjamin Peters, Andoni Ibarra, Hadeel Naeem, Alin Olteanu, Hans Ekkehard Plesser, Ana María Guzmán and Andrei Korbut.
Objects of Research: Andrei Korbut
New edition of our “Objects of Research” series: Find out what c:o/re Junior Fellow Andrei Korbut‘s most important research object is. In his studies Andrei focuses on human–machine communication, applying ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to reveal the detailed ways in which humans organize their interactions with computers.
“There is a joke about which faculty is cheaper for the university. Mathematics is very cheap because all they need is just pencils and erasers. But philosophy is even cheaper because they don’t even need erasers.
My favorite and indispensable object is the rOtring 600 mechanical pencil. It shows that social science is closer to mathematics than to philosophy. Of course, social scientists often need more than pencil and eraser: they have to collect and process data from the real world. But this processing is greatly facilitated by the ability to write and erase your observations.
In my work, I deal with the transcripts of human-machine communication, and I use the rOtring 600, which has a built-in eraser, a lot. It’s useful not only because of the eraser, but also because it’s designed to stay on the table and not break, even in very demanding circumstances like the train journey. And it gives me the feeling that I am making something tangible with it, because it reminds me of engineers or designers producing blueprints for objects and machines.”
Would you like to find out more about our Objects of Research series at c:o/re? Then take a look at the pictures by Benjamin Peters, Andoni Ibarra, Hadeel Naeem, Alin Olteanu, Hans Ekkehard Plesser and Ana María Guzmán.
c:o/re Newsletter – Special Edition
As many exciting things have happened and will happen in the past and coming months, we would like to quickly update you with this special edition of the c:o/re newsletter.
We hope you enjoy it!
K. Jon Barwise Prize for
Gabriele Gramelsberger
Special honour for her research work: c:o/re director Gabriele Gramelsberger has been awarded the 2023 K. Jon Barwise Prize by the American Philosophical Association (APA).
The K. Jon Barwise Prize honours members of the APA who have made significant and sustained contributions to the areas of philosophy and computer science over the course of their careers. Gabriele Gramelsberger’s research focuses on the philosophy and epistemology of computer science. She has conducted extensive studies on modelling, simulation and machine learning in climate science and molecular biology.
From 16 to 17 May 2024, the KHK c:o/re will host a celebration workshop on “Epistemology of Arithmetic” by Gabriele Gramelsberger (Barwise Prize) and Markus Pantsar (book publication “Numerical Cognition and the Epistemology of Arithmetic” at Cambridge University Press in May 2024). Further information will be available here shortly.
acatech membership for
Stefan Böschen
End of the year 2023, c:o/re director Stefan Böschen was appointed as a new member of acatech, the National Academy of Science and Engineering.
The acatech membership recognises outstanding scientific accomplishments of the elected scientist, which contribute to acatech’s mission. acatech as a working academy aims at science-based advice to policymakers and society thereby linking technological developments to aspects of Transformation and Society. Areas of interest are energy and resources, mobility and logistics, life sciences and health, digital transformation, boundary conditions for innovation and transformation of the business location.
Art installation at c:o/re:
Unfelt Threshold
We are delighted to present the first art installation at KHK c:o/re.
The installation is a cooperation between Japanese artist Aoi Suwa and c:o/re Senior Fellow Prof. Masahiko Hara. On Tuesday, 30 January, the collaboration opened with a live art installation and conversation on Fluctonomous Emergence.
You are cordially invited to visit the installation until 22 February 2024. Please register by sending an email to events@khk.rwth-aachen.de. The installation is located in the back of our lecture hall at our building on Theaterstraße 75.
Research stay in New York
From 11 March to 5 April 2024, our postdoc Phillip H. Roth will be a visiting research fellow at NYU’s College of Arts & Science. His stay is hosted by Lisa Gitelman, a leading media historian working on American print culture, technologies of inscription, and the emergence of new media.
Phillip will be advancing his project on communication formats in late-modern science, specifically on the history of preprints in particle physics.
PoM in Aachen
From 22 to 26 April 2024, the experimental conference Politics of the Machines: Lifelikeness & beyond will take place in Aachen, which seeks to bring together researchers and practitioners from a wide range of fields across the sciences, technology and the arts to develop imaginaries for possibilities that are still to be realized and new ideas of what the contingency of life is.
As part of the conference, a cooperation with the Performing Arts Centre PACT Zollverein in Essen is planned for Friday, 26 April, and Saturday, 27 April 2024. With ›life.like‹, PACT invites you to an experiential, installative, and discursive journey that questions and transcends the boundaries between machines, objects, and biological systems. What spheres exist beyond the dividing lines of the living and non-living? How do data and unknown techno-social interactions influence decisions and our perception of the living? What relationships, realms of possibility, and collaborations emerge between technologies and artistic practices?
We look forward to seeing you there!
Get to know our fellows: Andrei Korbut
Get to know our current fellows and gain an impression of their research.
In a new series of short interviews, we asked them to introduce themselves, talk about their work at c:o/re, the impact of their research on society and give book recommendations.
1. Please introduce yourself.
I’m Andrei Korbut. I’m a sociologist studying human-computer interaction.
2. What is your research about?
My research is about how a particular kind of humanoid robot — it’s called Pepper — has become a popular research tool in robotics labs around the world.
I want to understand what properties of the robot make it useful for studying human-robot interaction, and how it is embedded in and helps to produce the configurations of epistemic practices, industrial interests, and academic politics specific to the field of robotics. To do this, I am tracing Pepper’s career from the production line to publication in an academic journal.
3. How do you see your research impact society?
I see the impact of my research as twofold. First, I hope that the results will influence policy decisions about science. There is a lot of talk about AI regulation nowadays, and as robotics is closely related to AI (although they are different fields), policymakers need more real-world knowledge about how robotics is organised to make their decisions more knowledge-based. And second, it would be great if my research could make humanoid robots less “opaque” to ordinary people. There is a lot of hype around humanoid robots today, based on developers’ desire to make them look more capable and autonomous than they really are. I think my research can show that these machines are not something supernatural and approaching humans in their abilities, but only exist because the large amount of human labour and knowledge is constantly embedded in them.
4. What does a research day at c:o/re look like for you?
I would even say that there is not one day, but two different days at c:o/re. The first is very quiet: I just go into the office and work at my desk, making notes, analysing data, reading, with some breaks for food and occasional conversations with colleagues. The second is more lively, full of discussions, meeting new people, and visiting very exciting places like real labs at RWTH. I like both days equally because they are beneficial for my research, although in different ways.
5. What does Cultures of Research mean to you?
For me c:o/re is a community of very talented and interested people where I can freely discuss my findings and plans and get new insights after each of such discussions. Small group of scholars working in the same field, as in c:o/re, is an excellent habitat for nourishing your ideas.
6. What book have you read recently that you would recommend?
It is a book not from my main area of interest, but I really enjoyed it. (I find it important to read outside my field from time to time.) It’s Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World by Marcia Bjornerud. This is a fascinating introduction to the way geologists think of time, providing some basic knowledge about the history of the discipline and the structure and evolution of the Earth. More importantly for me, the book teaches how to see the traces of time in the objects around us. The book is aimed at people like me who are not very familiar with geology, so I found it really interesting, not least because Bjornerud presents geology through her own personal experience as a field researcher. Also, the illustrations by Haley Hagerman are masterful.
Objects of Research: Ana María Guzmán
Today we proceed our “Objects of Research” series with a picture by c:o/re research associate and events coordinator Ana María Guzmán, whose dissertation “Within Nature: Hegel’s Local Determination of Thought” deals with the conditions for the intelligibility of nature within Hegel’s Logic and Philosophy of Nature.
“As I research Hegel’s logic and how he understands life as a logical category necessary to make nature intelligible, I work closely with his texts. On the other hand, the stickers on my laptop remind me of the need to look at reality and regularly question the relevance of my research for understanding current social phenomena. In this sense, I think I remain a Hegelian, because for Hegel one can only fully understand an object of research by looking at both its logical concept and how it appears in reality. However, I think that in order to look at current political and social phenomena, we need to go beyond Hegel’s racist and sexist ideas, which are all around his ideas on social organization. And none of this would be possible without a good cup of coffee and/or a club mate!”
Would you like to find out more about our Objects of Research series at c:o/re? Then take a look at the pictures by Benjamin Peters, Andoni Ibarra, Hadeel Naeem, Alin Olteanu and Hans Ekkehard Plesser.
Listening to Science – Live Performance by Valentina Vuksic
Making digital data work audible and tangible – this is the focus of the artistic research project “Computersignals. Art and Biology in the Age of Digital Experimentation” under the direction of Prof. Hannes Rickli at the Zurich University of the Arts.
On Friday, 16 February 2024 at 7:30 pm at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re), Valentina Vuksic, transdisciplinary employee in the research project, will present artistic formats that are based on direct audifications of computer processes and – even without this context – can be performed as musical works.
The sound recordings (electromagnetic fields, current fluctuations and mechanical vibrations) originate from research equipment in biology laboratories of Hans Hofmann at the University of Texas at Austin and the underwater observatory RemOs of the climate impact research by Philipp Fischer (Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research) in Kongfjorden in Spitsbergen, which are stored as audio files and merely reassembled. The performance reflects the materiality of digital data production and processing in the processes of gaining scientific knowledge and operates at the interface between art and scientific research.
You are cordially invited to register at events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.
Objects of Research: Hans Ekkehard Plesser
For this post in our „Objects of Research“ series, we interviewed c:o/re Senior Fellow Hans Ekkehard Plesser, whose work focuses on simulation technology for large-scale neuronal network simulations and reproducibility of research in computational neuroscience.
“For the past two decades, I have had a leading role in developing the neuronal network simulator NEST. This high-quality research software can improve research culture by providing a foundation for reliable, reproducible and FAIRly sharable research in computational neuroscience. Together with colleagues, I work hard to establish “nest::simulated()” as a mark of quality for research results in the field. Collaboration in the NEST community is essential to this effort, and many great ideas have come up while sharing a cup of coffee.“
Would you like to find out more about our Objects of Research series at c:o/re? Then take a look at the pictures by Benjamin Peters, Andoni Ibarra, Hadeel Naeem and Alin Olteanu.
Unfelt Treshold: Art Installation & Conversation on Fluctonomous Emergence
Unfelt Threshold is a project in which Japanese artist Aoi Suwa is indirectly linking together various pieces of objects and images, exhibiting the creations that she has produced over the years. As part of the project, c:o/re Senior Fellow Masahiko Hara and Aoi Suwa will stage a live installation at RWTH Aachen University’s Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) and engage in a conversation on “Fluctonomous Emergence”, a term coined by Masahiko Hara. His research focuses on the integration of art strategies in science and technology and introduces a new concept of natural intelligence based on the emergent functions of autonomous ambiguous systems that exhibit fluctuant behavior.
This project stems from the concept of “shiki-ik” (識閾, the threshold of consciousness), the boundary where sensations and reactions occur in response to stimuli. The threshold through which transitions occur from the unconscious to the conscious, and vice versa, is the gateway of shifting between consciousness and unconsciousness.
Aoi Suwa continues to employ experimental techniques to create works focused on phenomena that can only be witnessed in situ, developing what could be described as an approach aimed at perceiving thresholds that emerge through the process of traversing back and forth between the realms of the perceivable/imperceivable and conscious/unconscious.
Through this project, we would like to explore its potential as a means of expressing the complexity and the lifelikeness of our current age and seek to reconsider our sustainable social systems surrounded by both living and non-living systems.
The installation can be viewed until 22 February 2024 by prior registration with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.
Get to know our fellows: Nikita Braguinski
Get to know our current fellows and gain an impression of their research.
In a new series of short videos, we asked them to introduce themselves, talk about their work at c:o/re, the impact of their research on society and give book recommendations.
You can now watch the fourth video of the music and media scientist Dr. Nikita Braguinski on our Youtube channel:
Check out our Media section or our YouTube channel to have a look at the other videos.
