CfP: Knowledge in the Age of Digital Re-/Production: Responsible Epistemologies?
European Culture and Technology Lab+:
Research and Innovation Conference
Knowledge in the Age of Digital Re-/Production: Responsible Epistemologies? June 4th - 5th 2025
Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences. Hochschule Darmstadt, Schöfferstraße 3, 64295 Darmstadt
The Conference on “Knowledge in the Age of Digital Re-/Production” hosted by the European University of Technology and organized by the European Culture and Technology Laboratory ‘ECT Lab+’ and its MSCA SE project EpiSTEAM aims to bring together experts from the Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences, Technology, and other fields, exploring (non-)positivist ways of enquiry and knowing.
Our encounter with the world is increasingly digitised. After the advent of digital technologies in science and business and after already having become “personal” (PCs), the networked computer finally entered most people’s intimate sphere as the smartphone more than 15 years ago. We organise our lives and keep in contact with our loved ones through digital messengers. We constitute our (collective) desires on social media, and we create our image of the world through digital media of a wide variety.
Most of these services are provided by a handful of corporations with monopolistic tendencies that design them in a way that ensures ever-increasing profits. Our relationship with the world is mediated through this digital-capitalist nexus. The epistemic consequences of the digital should therefore not only be discussed as a question of technology but also of its socio-economic context and the mutual conditionality of the two. Digital cybernetic technologies seem to be uniquely compatible with a capitalist market that has itself been described as a self-regulating system of quantitative signals by its most fervent proponents. But the very same technology has also given rise to hopes for a more humane and sustainable future, cumulating in concepts such as ‘cybernetic socialism’.
Whether you agree or disagree with these framings of digitization, we would like you to join our collective endeavour to think critically about its epistemic implications. As Walter Benjamin did almost 90 years ago for the then-new image reproduction media of his time, we want to ask: (How) does the practice of knowledge production, distribution and utilization change in the age of digital re-/production?
We invite papers, panels, performances, poster presentations, artistic submissions, artist talks, installations, and interventions that address the relationship between digital technology, epistemology, and design. The open call is directed to scholars, philosophers, scientists, artists, designers, and creative practitioners.
Please submit a 500-word description/abstract (excluding references) for your proposed artistic intervention/ paper presentation etc. before February 17, 2025. (There is no participation fee.)
Please use the PDF-file format for submission and render your text completely anonymous (metadata included) to allow for blind reviewing.
Please send your title and abstract ONLY to: ectlab.cfp@h-da.de
The notification of acceptance will be sent around the end of March 2025.
Possible interventions or responses could consider but are not restricted to:
- Theoretical Foundations (e. g. concepts of the terms ‘medium’ and ‘mediation’, critical perspectives on cybernetics, technological mediation theory, epistemology in the philosophy of technology)
- Societal and Political Impacts of the ‘Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere’ via Digital Media (e.g. the power of platforms, crisis of truth? fake news and misinformation, contribution to the rise of authoritarianism)
- Knowledge in Digital Capitalism (e. g.: political economy of knowledge production, influence of capitalist structures on cognition, money as a medium)
- Emancipatory Perspectives for Digital Technology (e. g.: digital innovations for the socioecological transformation, care under digital conditions, cybernetic planning and systemic alternatives)
- Responsible Application of Digital Knowledge (e. g.: questions of policy, digitization in education, ethics in algorithm design, transformation of responsibilities and decision-making in socio-technical systems)
Consecutive updates will be published on ectlab.eu .