We are happy to announce that the lecture series of the summer term 2025 will continue to explore the topic of expanding science and technology studies.

Over the decades, science and technology studies (STS) have developed many different approaches for investigating the relationship between science and society and to dig deep into the cultures of research, the ways science is conducted. For example, scholars have investigated the local cultures and politics underlying processes of knowledge production, the biases and gender divisions informing the organization of academic institutions, or the reception of future technological visions in different publics. There is a rich knowledge. However, it seems that science studies are not well prepared for the transformation challenge, a present-day topic that also affects science, knowledge societies, and the spread of knowledge. Against this background, the purpose of this lecture series is to understand first the transformation challenge and its consequences for science studies and second to explore different pathways of future science studies.  

The lecture series will begin on May 7, 2025 with a talk by Nina Frahm entitled “Innovation as Res Publica: The New Governance of Technoscience and its Politics”.

For an overview of the dates and speakers, please see the program.

The lecture series will take place every second Wednesday from 5 to 6.30 pm, in the lecture hall of the center and online via zoom.

If you would like to attend the lectures, please send a short email to events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Program

We cordially invite you to the interdisciplinary workshop “After Networks: Reframing Scale, Reimagining Connections”, which will take place on April 16 and 17, 2025 at the SuperC of RWTH Aachen University. The event is organized in collaboration with Nathalia Lavigne, who is currently a fellow at the KHK c:o/re.

Abstract

In the last few years, we have witnessed an unprecedented crisis in the way social interactions have merged with the informational space. The current “space of the world”, as the artificial space of social media platforms has been called (Couldry, 2025), is designed and controlled by corporations with strictly business purposes, putting at risk a sense of community in a devastating way. How can the future of the internet be imagined beyond social media platforms? What can we learn from other networks or other notions of space devised by artists? In which ways can digital communication be grounded on equity, common ownership and sustainability? These are some of the questions that will be addressed during the workshop.

The interdisciplinary program, combining art and internet studies, puts together different approaches on how science and technology are configured in other spheres beyond academia. Gathering scholars, artists and activists who have been working on disruptive understanding of digital systems, this two-day event will discuss alternative ways to reimagine connections in contrast to increasingly monopolistic and financially motivated social media platforms.

The workshop includes an opening artist talk with Eduardo Kac, a keynote speech with the media scholar Lori Emerson, who is launching her new book “Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook” (Anthology Editions, 2025) and a round table focused on a community-centered perspective of networks.

The full program can be found in this document.

If you would like to attend, please register with: events@khk.rwth-aachen.de

Speakers

Tatiana Bazzichelli is the founder and director of the Disruption Network Lab, a non-profit organisation in Berlin that explores the intersection of politics, technology and society (www.disruptionlab.org). Her work focuses on whistleblowing, network culture, art and activism. Since September 2023 she is the director of the Disruption Network Institute: Investigating the Kill Cloud, a new centre for investigation and empirical research into the impact of artificial intelligence on new technologies of war, automated weapons and networked warfare (https://disruption.institute). She is the author of Whistleblowing for Change (2021), Networked Disruption (2013), Disrupting Business (2013) and Networking (2006). She was a member of the Transparency International Anti-Corruption Award Committee 2020. In 2019-2021, she was appointed by the Federal Government and the City of Berlin as a jury member for the Hauptstadtkulturfonds (Capital Cultural Fund), and in 2020-2023 she was a jury member for the Kulturlichter Prize, a new award for digital cultural education in Germany. For three years until 2014, she was a curator at the transmediale art & digital culture festival in Berlin, where she developed the year-round programme reSource transmedial culture Berlin and curated several conferences, workshops and art projects.

Lisa Deml [she/her] is an independent curator and writer based in Berlin. Initially trained as a journalist, she subsequently worked for public institutions and non-profit organisations, including Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin; Haus der Kunst, Munich; and Ashkal Alwan, Beirut. Most recently, she curated the exhibition ‘Like Snow in the Middle of Summer’ with works by the Lebanese artist Rabih Mroué as part of Manifesta 15 (Granollers, 2024) and the international symposium ‘After Memory’ in collaboration with Víctor Fancelli Capdevila and Nathalia Lavigne and in partnership with ZKM | Center for Art and Media (Karlsruhe, 2024). As of March 2025, Marie-Sophie Dorsch and her are joint artistic directors of Halle für Kunst Lüneburg e.V.

Lori Emerson is an Associate Professor of Media Studies and Associate Chair of Graduate Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is also the Founding Director of the Media Archaeology Lab. Her most recent book is Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook (Anthology Editions, 2025), now available for pre-order. She is also co-author of The Lab Book: Situated Practices in Media Studies (with Darren Wershler and Jussi Parikka), author of Reading Writing Interfaces, and co-editor of three collections. Her research focuses on uncovering crisis points in past media, or, points at which there was the possibility, never fully realized, for technologies to become “other” than what they are now. Lori Emerson also tries to undo established narratives of how contemporary technologies came to be by looking at artists and writers’ experiments with, for example, network technologies.

Eduardo Kac is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work in contemporary art and poetry. In the early 1980s, Kac created digital, holographic and online works that anticipated the global culture we live in today, composed of ever-changing information in constant flux. In 1997 the artist coined the term “Bio Art,” igniting the development of this new art form with works such as his transgenic rabbit GFP Bunny (2000) and Natural History of the Enigma (2009), which earned him the Golden Nica, the most prestigious award in the field of media art. GFP Bunny has become a global phenomenon, having been appropriated by major popular culture franchises such as Sherlock, Big Bang Theory and Simpsons, and by writers such as Margaret Atwood and Michael Crichton. In 2017, Kac created Inner Telescope, a work conceived for and realized in outer space with the cooperation of French astronaut Thomas Pesquet. In 2024, Kac’s Ágora flew to deep space aboard the Centaur rocket and is now in a perpetual heliocentric orbit. Kac’s Adsum landed on the Moon in 2025. Kac’s singular and highly influential career spans poetry, performance, drawing, printmaking, photography, artist’s books, early digital and online works, holography, telepresence, bio art, and space art. Read more.

Alex Wermer-Colan is a co-founder, long-time volunteer, and Executive Director of Philly Community Wireless. A resident of North Philadelphia, Alex has contributed to all facets of Philly Community Wireless’ growth and operations, including conducting installs throughout the coverage area, engaging in community outreach with residents and organizations, training and teaching volunteers and staff, overseeing software and networking infrastructure, and developing policies and fundraising strategies to sustain the organization. In addition to his work with Philly Community Wireless, Alex works as the Academic and Research Director at Temple University Libraries’ Loretta C. Duckworth Scholars Studio, where he supports research and teaching with emerging technologies across the disciplines. Alex holds a PhD in English literature with a focus on critical theory from the City University of University of New York’s Graduate Center. Alex serves as the Managing Editor for the Programming Historian in English, and his writing, translations, and dramaturgical work have in such publications as The Los Angeles Review of Books, New Directions, Harpers, New Criterion, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, Twentieth Century Literature, The Yearbook of Comparative Literature, dh+lib, Debates in the Digital Humanities, The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy, Indiana University Press, and Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative.

Bruna Zanolli is a specialist in community-centered connectivity and digital care, grounded in intersectional feminism, social and climate justice, and popular education. With 15+ years of experience and research in community radio, autonomous networks, and local technologies, she works to advance public-interest technologies. Bruna supports community networks in the Global South through the Local Networks project (in collaboration with Rhizomatica and APC) and contributes to Brazil’s telecom regulator Anatel on the Community Networks Committee, advocating for inclusive policies and sustainable funding. A Mozilla Open Web Fellow (2018/19) alumni, Bruna is part of the Transfeminist Digital Care Network and APC’s Feminist Internet Research Network (FIRN). She holds a master’s in Communication and Culture from MediaLab UFRJ and is a dedicated FLOSS enthusiast.

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Header Image:
© Illustration of SSTV event “Still Life Alive” (by Carlos Fadon Vicente) which also included “Intercities São Paulo / Pittsburgh” from 1988, organized by the Digital Art Exchange (headed by artist Bruce Breland) [from DAX archives, Carnegie Mellon University, “Intercities Sao Paul-Pittsburgh” Jan. 25, 1988 Letter of May 31 to Breland/Kocher from Matuck FF44].

March 25 to 27, 2025, Forum M, Buchkremerstraße 1-7, 52062 Aachen

The international conference “Cultures of Research” takes stock of the first four years of the fellow program at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Rearch (c:o/re).

During these years, more than fifty international fellows came to the KHK c:o/re to explore the transformation of research in its many facets. Topics such as the digitalization of science, the growing influence of AI on research practices, the organizational transformations in science, the “engineering of science”, and the historical as well as intercultural comparison of “varieties of science” have been widely discussed.

The conference will focus the discussions on these topics in various panels with current and alumni fellows as well as members of the scientific advisory board of the KHK c:o/re.

A detailed program with all speakers and titles can be found in this document.

Program

On February 20, 2025, KHK c:o/re Fellow Hannah Star Rogers will deliver the keynote at the Materializing Methods symposium at Durham University.

Materializing Methods is a one-day symposium hosted by the Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities at Durham University, in collaboration with The Cultural Negotiation of Science research group (Northumbria University) and Hannah Star Rogers (Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen).

What can practice-based research tell us about working with disciplinary cultures that are not our own? With a focus on how contemporary art practices engage with expert cultures in health and biomedicine, this symposium foregrounds questions of method, practice and process in relation to interdisciplinary inquiry. Critical art practices are knowledge-producing practices that shape interdisciplinary research agendas.

If you are interested in participating, please visit the event website.

On November 5 and 6, 2025, the second edition of the Freedom of Research Summit will take place in Aachen, jointly organized by the Charlemagne Prize Foundation, RWTH Aachen University’s Knowledge Hub, and the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re).

With the topic “Europe in Times of Division”, the Summit aims to address the complex challenges facing our continent today – ranging from political polarization and geopolitical tensions to economic disparities and environmental divides. How can we navigate these challenges and create a resilient framework for future developments?

This year, we invite you to take an active role in shaping the Symposium. We encourage you to participate in our Call for Contributions to explore the role of science as a bridge-builder in Europe within your specific research field or area of work and to reflect on the importance of academic freedom in this context. The Summit’s Symposium will take place on November 6, 2025 at the SuperC of RWTH Aachen University.

Please have a look at the Call for further information.

The application deadline is March 31, 2025.

If you are interested in a recap of last year’s symposium, here is a blog post.

On January 29, 2025, a group of fellows and staff members visited the Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems at the E.ON Energy Research Center at RWTH Aachen University.

Professor Ferdinanda Ponci and her team gave us insights into their research topics and we learned about exciting EU projects such as EnerTEF. We also enjoyed a tour of the ACS lab and discovered many common interests ranging from AI and AI bias to hardware-in-the-loop topics.

As part of the Lab-Talks, KHK c:o/re fellows and staff visit various institutes at RWTH Aachen University to promote networking and interdisciplinary collaboration between STEM projects and the social sciences and humanities.

photo credits: Jana Hambitzer

Gabriele Gramelsberger, Professor of Philosophy of Science and Technology and Director of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) at RWTH Aachen University, was awarded the K. Jon Barwise Prize 2023 by the American Philosophical Association (APA) last Thursday, January 9, 2025, in New York.

The award ceremony took place during the 121st annual meeting of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association (the APA also has Central and Western Divisions). The prize, named after the American philosopher K. Jon Barwise, has been awarded since 2002 for significant and sustained contributions to philosophy and computer science.

Gabriele Gramelsberger is the third woman to receive the K. Jon Barwise Award. In her work, she develops a conceptual framework for the Philosophy of Computational Science as well as an open science infrastructure for Computational Science Studies. In 2018, she founded the Computational Social Systems Lab in Aachen, supported by the NRW Digital Fellowship 2017. Together with her team at the KHK c:o/re, Gabriele Gramelsberger will organize the History and Philosophy of Computing conference in Aachen in December 2025.