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

Automatisms are defined as processes that largely develop beyond conscious control. Psychology has detected automatisms in individual behaviour; sociology analyses structures of habitualisation and conventionalisation; economists consider the market as an automatism. Virtually behind the backs of those involved, automatisms generate new structures; this is what makes them an interesting model of development, situated at a distance from conscious designs and planned processes. Automatisms seem to operate particularly in distributed systems; they are technical and quasi-technical procedures. Simultaneously, they conflict with the concept of technical automatons.
The Research Training Group invites dissertation projects that analyse automatisms in the field of media, information technology and culture; approaches should include the analysis of concrete materials, theoretical work or engineering. The Research Training Group is designed to be interdisciplinary: Participant advisors are from the social sciences, media studies, literature and film studies as well as computer science; the applicants are expected to have a degree in one of these fields.

• DFG Programme: Research Training Groups
• Applicant Institution: Universität Paderborn
• Participating Researchers: Professor Dr. Ralf Adelmann; Professorin Dr. Christina Bartz; Professorin Dr. Annette Brauerhoch; Professorin Dr. Hannelore Bublitz; Professor Dr.-Ing. Reinhard Keil; Professorin Dr. Inga Lemke; Professor Dr. Friedhelm Meyer auf der Heide; Professor Dr. Christoph Ernst Ribbat; Professor Dr.-Ing. Christoph Sorge; Professor Dr. Tilmann Sutter; Professorin Dr. Jutta Weber; Professor Dr. Hartmut Winkler
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Norbert Otto Eke