Tagung "Digitale Aufklärung" der DGPhil
2025-04-16 10:00 - 2025-04-17 15:30 (Europe/Berlin) | RWTH Aachen University – Super C, Templergraben 57, Aachen, 52062
You can find the program in this document.
If you would like to attend, please register with: events@khk.rwth-aachen.de

Workshop "After Networks: Reframing Scale, Reimagining Connections"
2025-04-16 16:30 - 2025-04-17 17:30 | RWTH Aachen University – Super C, Templergraben 57, Aachen, 52062
If “Expanded STS” can also be understood as a platform – in a sense that it gathers different disciplines that eventually go back to their original research field – the workshop “After Networks: reframing scale, reimagining connections” proposes a direct connection with the KHK c:o/re’s 2024 research theme. The interdisciplinary program, combining art and internet studies, also 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.
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 program 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.
If you would like to attend, please register with: events@khk.rwth-aachen.de
You can find an overview of the speakers here.
Program:
April 16:
16:30 – 18:30: Artist talk
Eduardo Kac: Dialogical Art on Earth and in Space
Moderated by Nathalia Lavigne
Recognized for his pioneering work in the fields of telepresence, bioart, holographic poetry and space art, Eduardo Kac has been developing artworks since the early 1980s that explore the idea of what he calls “dialogical art”. His work articulates processes of communication between different spheres and agents, and between both humans and non-humans, such as animals, plants and robots. In this talk, Kac will focus on his recent works developed in outer space, showing their connection with earlier works from the 1980s and 1990s in which he expanded communication in art to include the non-human. The lecture is followed by a screening of the documentary Inner Telescope, a Space Artwork by Eduardo Kac (2017, 35 min), directed by Virgile Novarina.
April 17:
9:30: Introduction of the project “After Memory” (more info here)
Nathalia Lavigne and Lisa Deml
10:00 – 12:00: Keynote
Lori Emerson: The Future of the Internet is a Future of Networks
Moderated by Ana María Guzmán
In the occasion of the launch of “Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook” (Anthology Editions, 2025), Lori Emerson will present some case studies gathered in the book: networks that existed before or outside of the internet, digital as well as analog, IRL as well as imagined, state-sponsored systems of control as well as homebrew communities in the footnotes of hacker culture. She is the Associate Professor of Media Studies and Director of the Intermedia Arts, Writing, and Performance Program at the University of Colorado Boulder and Director of the Media Archaeology Lab. She is also co-author of THE LAB BOOK: Situated Practices in Media Studies (University of Minnesota Press, 2021), author of Reading Writing Interfaces: From the Digital to the Bookbound (University of Minnesota Press June, 2014), and editor of numerous collections.
12:00 – 14:00: Lunch and coffee
14:30 – 16:30: Roundtable
Tatiana Bazzichelli, Geert Lovink, João C. Magalhães, Alex Wermer-Colan, and Bruna Zanolli: Local networks: reframing scale
Moderated by Nathalia Lavigne
In times when the ‘extinction internet’ notion has been claimed from a “platform-in-the-age-climate-collapse perspective” (Lovink, 2024), which other telecommunication infrastructures could be developed in this current configuration? How can a more nourishing sense of community be recreated beyond the social disintegration naturalized on social media? Gathering five researchers who have been working on disruptive understanding of digital systems, this roundtable will focus on a community-centered perspective of networks and their importance in the current context. Geert Lovink and Tatiana Bazzichelli will talk about the organization format of the Institute of Network Cultures and the Disruption Network Lab – founded by each of them in 2004 and 2014, respectively. Focusing on the challenges around inequalities affecting particularly the Global South, Bruna Zanolli will present recent projects developed by indigenous communities in Brazil, while João C. Magalhães will discuss the potential use of deliberative democracy, and in particular of online citizens’s councils, to address platform speech governance issue. Lastly, Alex Wermer-Colan will talk about the coalition Philly Community Wireless, co-created by him in the outskirts of Philadelphia in 2020.
Have a look at the event poster here.
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]

Science-Art Installation Experiment "Melodic Pigments: Exploring New Synesthesia"
2025-04-28 16:00 - 17:30 | Stadtpalais, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Science-Art Installation Experiment by Yasmin Vega (Tokyo University of the Arts) and Masahiko Hara (Tokyo Institute of Technology/Institute of Science Tokyo)
Synesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which the stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in another sensory or cognitive pathway. An example of synesthesia is experiencing “colors” in response to sensory information. This phenomenon can manifest as perceiving and feeling “colors” when hearing certain sounds, reading letters, or even tasting or smelling something.
In this installation, we aim to train a machine using machine learning based on databases that map the correlation between emotions and colors in response to certain sounds. The machine will then demonstrate the colors it imagines and feels when it hears a sound, thereby expressing its own form of new synesthesia in machines.
Through these explorations, we seek to deepen our understanding of synesthesia in machines and its emergent functions, moving beyond mere sympathy or empathy between humans and machines. Additionally, we aim to explore methodologies for visualizing the internal cognitive processes of machines.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.
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Credits header photo: Masahiko Hara

Innovation as Res Publica: The New Governance of Technoscience and its Politics – Nina Frahm
2025-05-07 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
This lecture is part of the summer semester 2025 lecture series Expanding Science and Technology Studies and the STS Forum organized by the HumTec (Human Technology Center) at RWTH Aachen University.
Abstract:
Imperatives of technoscientific innovation have become a ubiquitous leitmotiv for public policies in the 21st century. Driven by increased public investments in research and development and fueled by hope and hype regarding the benefits of emerging technologies for society, innovation is no longer a mere task of the market but a central concern of democracies in their pursuit of desirable futures. Yet, innovation’s intrinsic uncertainty, its risks and possible harms for people and the planet also present a challenge for public institutions when it comes to legitimizing innovation efforts.
In my research, I follow the turn to innovation as res publica – a public thing – and argue that it is enabled by a shift from ‘hard’ regulatory instruments to tools and frameworks for the ‘soft’ governance of technoscience such as ethics guidelines and principles, public engagement exercises, and co-creation processes. Rather than following technocratic rationales, the new governance of technoscience relies on new forms of reasoning and expertise that grant society, its values and needs a central role in shaping innovation trajectories. As such, it is key for the production of powerful imaginaries of democratic sovereignty vis-à-vis innovation and corollary ideals of socio-technical order. By zooming into the field of AI and emerging neurotechnologies, I examine the situated politics of new governance regimes, and in particular, their critical role in the making of a body politic in the innovation era.
If you would like to attend, please register with: events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Design Meets Evolution: Theory and Practice - Theodore von Kármán Lecture with Victor de Lorenzo
2025-05-13 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
The prevailing view of biological evolution is not unlike bricolage/pastiche/tinkering – in sharp contrast with rational engineering. Yet, different paths often lead to solutions that coincide or converge whether they emerge from naturally-occurring evolution or rationally designed. Such a conjunction – often presented as a mere anecdote – in fact reveals the ability of biological systems to physically explore solution spaces and gravitate towards information-rich attractors, which can be found through different routes. The consequences of this notion for bioengineering are remarkable, as it enables solutions to multi-objective optimization challenges not yet amenable to all-rational approaches. The ensuing technical question is how to bring about hyper-diversification not only of genomic sequences but also environmental parameters for securing the desired performance of a given synthetic device. This issue will be illustrated with a number of practical cases where naturally-occurring or artificially enhanced variability was key to find ideal outcomes to otherwise intractable design hitches of interest for industrial and environmental biotechnology.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Expanding STS: Art, Science, and Technology Studies (ASTS) - Hannah Star Rogers
2025-05-21 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
Art and science are all around us: in the academy, in galleries, and in the news. How do we make sense of the power that these two categories hold in our society? And is this process new? In this lecture, Rogers explores how the tools of Science and Technology Studies (STS) can provide critical insights into art and science projects, highlighting the practices of these knowledge-making communities as discussed in her book Art, Science, and the Politics of Knowledge (MIT Press, 2022). Rogers’ work challenges the idea that art and science are inherently separate or incompatible. Instead, she suggests that these fields are better understood as knowledge communities that are constantly negotiating, shaping, and blurring their boundaries. This approach reframes how we think about the roles of art and science in society, and it also points to a new subdiscipline—Art, Science, and Technology Studies (ASTS)—which blends the insights of both fields to explore their interconnectedness. This framework can deepen our understanding of how these disciplines shape social worlds. By examining artistic practices through the lens of STS and showing how art can inform STS inquiry, Rogers highlights a dynamic and evolving relationship between science and art. This approach invites us to think beyond the traditional categories and consider the fluidity of knowledge production, where the boundaries of art and science are constantly in flux, influenced by politics, culture, and technological advances.
This event is part of our summer semester 2025 lecture series Expanding Science and Technology Studies.
To take part either online or in presence, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Tagung "Der singuläre Satz"
2025-06-11 - 2025-06-13 | Stadtpalais, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Tagung “Der singuläre Satz” by the Research Area “Wissenskulturen” of the Faculty Arts and Humanities of RWTH Aachen University in cooperation with the KHK c:o/re. The event will be held in German.
Abstract:
Singuläre Sätze zirkulieren in unterschiedlichen Wissenskulturen. Manche dieser Sätze, etwa mathematische Sätze, Weisheitssätze, Gnomen und Aphorismen, sind von vornherein als Einzelsätze konzipiert, andere stammen aus umfangreicheren Texten und haben ein Eigenleben entwickelt. In Einzelsätzen wird Wissen in prägnanter Form verdichtet und überliefert; das Zitieren, Sammeln, De- und Rekontextualisieren individueller Sätze erlaubt ihre Neuinterpretation und ihre Überführung in kollektive Wissensbestände. Einzelsätze partizipieren an lokalen Kulturen des Forschens und Lehrens und überqueren zugleich die Grenzen zwischen Wissenschaft, Literatur und gesellschaftlicher Öffentlichkeit. Als mobile Kondensate von Wissen geben sie Auskunft über komplexe, sich transformierende Systeme wie Wissenschaft, Recht, Religion, Kunst, Politik und Medien, in denen sie ihre Wirkmacht entfalten. Die Tagung fragt nach der Poetik, Funktion und Epistemologie von Einzelsätzen in verschiedenen wissensgeschichtlichen Kontexten von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart.
Information und Anmeldung:
wissenskulturen@germlit.rwth-aachen.de
Programm:
Mittwoch, 11.06.2025
Begrüßung/Einführung
15.00-15.45 | Gabriele Gramelsberger, Christian Metz, Caroline Torra-Mattenklott, Klaus Freitag (Aachen): Der singuläre Satz als prägnante Form
15.45-16.45 | Winfried Menninghaus (Berlin): Drei Faktoren memorabler Einzelsätze
Pause
17.00-18.00 | Elisabetta Mengaldo (Padua): Sätze als verdichtete Formeln. Lichtenbergs Marginalien und seine Sudelbücher
Abendveranstaltung
20.00 | Lesung und Gespräch von und mit Oswald Egger
Ort: Raststätte, Kulturraum Aachen, Lothringerstraße 23, 52062 Aachen
Moderation: Christian Metz und Sarah Goeth
Donnerstag, 12.06.2025
Epistemologie mathematischer und physikalischer Einzelsätze
09.30-10.30 | Gabriele Gramelsberger (Aachen): Protokollsatzdebatte – Überprüfbare singuläre Sätze
10.30-11.30 | Michael Friedman (Bonn): Blumenberg, Wittgenstein und (mathematische) Elementarsätze
Pause
12.00-13.00 | Arianna Borrelli (Aachen/Berlin): Erhaltungssätze: Die Rolle der Sprache in der Konstruktion naturwissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis
Mittagspause
14.30-15.30 | Aura Heydenreich (Erlangen): „Von Stund an sollen Raum für sich und Zeit für sich völlig zu Schatten herabsinken…“ Narratologie und historische Epistemologie von Einsteins/Minkowskis Raumzeit in der Relativitätstheorie
Pause
Singuläre Sätze und ihr Umfeld: Kompilation, Kontextualisierung, Vernetzung
16.00-17.00 | Christian Kaiser (Bonn): Die Methodik des Samplings philosophischer Einzelsätze in medizinischen Quaestiones des Mittelalters
17.00-18.00 | Manfred Eikelmann (Bochum): Denkwürdige Spruchszenen. Wissenspraktiken in den Apophthegmata des Erasmus von Rotterdam und ihrer ersten deutschen Übersetzung (1531- 1535, 1534)
Freitag, 13.06.2025
Ästhetik, Politik und Wirkkraft singulärer Sätze
09.30-10.30 | Anne Storch (Köln): Der Satz, der am Anfang ist
10.30-11.30 | Sabrina Blank (Aachen): Von der Fälschung zum legitimierten Rechtsanspruch des Papstes: Die Tragweite des singulären (Grund-)Satzes der päpstlichen Nichtjudizierbarkeit im Mittelalter
Pause
12.00-13.00 | Johannes Engels (Köln): Die Sentenzen der Sieben Weisen des antiken Griechenlands als ein Beispiel epochen-übergreifend einflussreicher ‚singulärer Sätze‘ 13.00-13.30 | Abschlussdiskussion
Hier das Programm als pdf-Datei
Bildnachweis Header:
Isaac Newtons Eintrag in Andreas Arnolds album amicorum, 8. November 1681. Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel: Cod. Guelf. 226 Blank., folio 82r. (public domain)

Metascience as the Social Hygiene Movement of Science Studies - Bart Penders
2025-06-18 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
Metascience and its more activist sibling, scientific reform, seek to rebuild public and peer trust for embattled fields or disciplines through the proposal, development and testing of new bureaucratic procedures for experimentation and publication in science. In the expanding STS universe, metascience is a qualitatively different addition, located outside of the HPS sphere and drawing concepts and methods primarily from psychology and epidemiology.
Metascience’s tendency to build procedures and infrastructures is primarily motivated to keep things out of scientific practice: researcher degrees of freedom, bias, social, political and economic influence and more. This lecture explores how the 19th-century hygienist movement can serve as a metaphor for contemporary scientific reform, in which reformers act as “procedural hygienists.” Drawing on Mary Douglas’ Purity and Danger, I will argue that just as the hygienists sought to impose order and cleanliness on the physical environment, today’s reformers aim to purify scientific procedures, addressing concerns of pollution in the form of bias, error, and opacity.
I will draw attention especially to the role of statistics as part of procedural hygiene. In both 19th century hygienist movements and in contemporary scientific reform movements, they are used to quantify and display contamination, purify data, assert authority and legitimacy, and build trust. They also come with the risk of epistemic injustice and the opacity of the moral agenda underpinning definitions of purity. To this end, I will ask how metascience is positioned relative to an expanding STS.
This event is part of our summer semester 2025 Lecture Series Expanding Science and Technology Studies.
To take part either online or in presence, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Vortrag "Ein Kind der Wissensökonomie? Zur Geschichte der Wissensgeschichte"
2025-06-25 18:00 - 21:00 | Stadtpalais, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Professor Caspar Hirschi from the University of St. Gallen will give a talk on “A child of the knowledge economy? On the history of the history of knowledge” (“Ein Kind der Wissensökonomie? Zur Geschichte der Wissensgeschichte”) in the KHK c:o/re lecture hall. The talk will be held in German.
Everyone is cordially invited to attend!
For further information and registration, please contact Sandra Dresia: dresia@histinst.rwth-aachen.de

Talk & Discussion "Hidden Futures: Work. Clicks & Crowds"
2025-06-26 19:00 - 23:00 | PACT Zollverein, Bullmannaue 20a, Essen, 45327, Germany
Which chain of work processes are triggered by a click in an app? Whose bodies are thereby set in motion and exposed to the elements? And how will our cities change when work is no longer tied to spaces, but is controlled by an ephemeral architecture of routes, data and likes?
The promise of services that can be delivered directly to your doorstep around the clock has now become part of everyday life. However, platforms such as Uber Eats, Gorillas and Lieferando are operated at the expense of migrants, who are frequently subjected to precarious working conditions. Digital interfaces conceal the material conditions that make such services possible initially.
The evening brings people together who work in the digital economy, in the context of app-based delivery services, logistics platforms or the care secctor. What future of work becomes visible here, and what future do we want? The audience is invited to open discussions, personal assessments and solidarity-based networking.
With Janne Martha Lentz, Semih Yalcin, Hedi Tounsi, Sebastian Randerath, metroZones e.V. / Jochen Becker and more.
“Work. Clicks and Crowds” is the start of the new series “Hidden Futures” at PACT, which is being developed in cooperation with the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) | RWTH Aachen University. The series looks at the material conditions of a variety of models of the future developed in the present.
Header photo: Hedi Tounsi, 2023

Data Behaviorism: A History - Daniela Wentz
2025-07-02 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Due to the heat, the lecture will only take place online.
Abstract:
Is behaviorism a revenant? This talk traces the emergence and expansion of data behaviorism – an epistemic and technical regime that models and governs human action through behavioral data and has shaped key infrastructures of prediction, recommendation, and control in contemporary digital systems. Drawing on historical case studies from mid-century behaviorist psychology, this talk interrogates the historical and epistemological foundations of data behaviorism by asking whether the behavioral logics underpinning today’s algorithmic systems represent a rupture – or rather an expansion – of earlier modes of governing conduct. Engaging critically with contemporary diagnoses of data-driven control, it explores how the capture, formalization, and modulation of behavior have long structured practices of intervention. By foregrounding its historical trajectories, I aim to open up data behaviorism to critical scrutiny from an STS perspective.
This event is part of our summer semester 2025 Lecture Series Expanding Science and Technology Studies.
Please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Tagung "Illustratives Denken – Zur Rolle von Zeichnungen, Scribbles und Visualisierungen im wissenschaftlichen Entdeckungsprozess"
2025-07-10 14:00 - 2025-07-11 17:00 | Stadtpalais, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Tagung “Illustratives Denken – Zur Rolle von Zeichnungen, Scribbles und Visualisierungen im wissenschaftlichen Entdeckungsprozess” by the Aachen Competence Centre for the History of Science (AKWG) is organizing the AKWG Conference 2025 in cooperation with the Chair of Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Technology and the KHK c:o/re of RWTH Aachen University. The event will be held in German.
Abstract:
Das Aachener Kompetenzzentrum Wissenschaftsgeschichte (AKWG) organisiert in Kooperation mit dem Lehrstuhl für Wissenschaftstheorie und Technikphilosophie sowie dem Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Kulturen des Forschens die AKWG Tagung 2025. Thema ist das illustrative Denken, das anhand von Zeichnungen, Scribbles und Visualisierungen den wissenschaftlichen Entdeckungsprozess voranbringt. Zahlreiche Beispiele aus der Wissenschaftsgeschichte lassen sich hier finden. Auch ist das Thema nicht neu, doch soll noch einmal vertieft nach der epistemischen Rolle des illustrativen Denkens gefragt werden.
Weitere Informationen finden sich auf der Website des AKWG und im Veranstaltungsprogramm.

How Uncertainty is Rendered Residual - Carsten Reinhardt
2025-07-16 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
This event is part of our summer semester 2025 Lecture Series Expanding Science and Technology Studies.
Abstract:
Residual Uncertainty is a historiographical concept of mine that combines the contingency part of traditional historiography with an approach featuring chemical residues as “matter out of place, time, and reason”. In my lecture, I wish to further develop the concept through addressing social processes that enable uncertainty to become a permanent and powerful, yet invisible, as well as a flexible and scientific, but unquestionable, feature of society. In other words, I hope to answer the question: How is uncertainty rendered residual? I seek answers in the practices, concepts, and organizational forms of mid-twentieth-century regulatory science, embedded in the executive branch of government.
To take part either online or in presence, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Workshop "Cultures of Credence: Mind Control and Other Fringe Epistemologies"
2025-10-22 10:00 - 15:00 | Stadtpalais, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
This workshop explores the borderlands of knowing, where knowledge claims are made and rejected, and where credibility is negotiated through appeals to evidence, replication, plausibility, and authority. Using concepts from history, philosophy, and STS, this workshop examines such subjects as mind control and its attendant sounds, the nature of evidence and its technologies, and how such subjects may be addressed in the classroom.
The immediate reason for this workshop is an exhibition on “Mind Control” planned for 2027 at MIT, for which James Kennaway, Hannah Rogers, and Bernd Bösel submitted a proposal on the sonic dimensions of sound control in factional and fictional accounts. Since the proposal has now made it to the second round of reviews, we want to invite James Kennaway to Aachen to convene and talk in person about the details of our possible contribution.
At the same time, we want to open up our discussions to what we call fringe epistemologies. Fringe claims are often dismissed via demarcation criteria, yet as Pinch and Collins (1979) demonstrate, these criteria (like repeatability) are themselves culturally variable and embedded in tacit judgments about competence and plausibility. In the case of mind control or UFO encounters, skepticism frequently precedes investigation, rendering some claims “unscientific” by default. As with parapsychology, the invocation of fraud or delusion often replaces empirical scrutiny with metaphysical certainty (Pinch 1979). Following work by Pinch and Collins (1979), Lewis and Bartlett (2024, forthcoming), and others, we treat fringe phenomena not as “pseudo-science” to be debunked, but as sites that expose how demarcation works—how standards like repeatability or falsifiability are socially and culturally contingent, invoked more often to maintain scientific authority than to evaluate claims. By exploring the epistemic and institutional politics that exclude alien encounters or telepathy from science, we learn not only about the fringe but about science itself.
Together, we ask:
• What counts as credible evidence, and who decides?
• How is “rigor” constructed or attributed in the fringe?
• What counts as a “collection” (of evidence, anomalies, artefacts)?
• What kinds of absences (bodies, instruments, data) become presences?
• What role do aesthetics, collections, and material culture play in shaping belief?
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.
References:
Bösel, B., & Kennaway, J. (2025). Mind Control: Einleitung in den Schwerpunkt. Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft vol. 32.
Lewis, J., & Bartlett, A. (forthcoming 2026). Bigfooters and scientific inquiry: On the borderlands of legitimate science. Routledge.
Lewis, J., & Bartlett, A. (2024). The Shape of Bigfoot: Transmuting Absences into Credible Knowledge Claims. Cultural Sociology.
Pinch, T. J. (1979). Normal Explanations of the Paranormal: The Demarcation Problem and Fraud in Parapsychology. Social Studies of Science, 9(3), 329-348.
Collins, H. M., & Pinch, T. J. (1979). The construction of the paranormal: Nothing unscientific is happening. In R. Wallis (Ed.), . The Sociological Review, 27(S1).

Digital Complexity: De-Anthropological Trends in Computing, AI, and Robotics - Gabriele Gramelsberger (Aachen)
2025-10-22 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
‼️ Unfortunately, tonight’s lecture by Gabriele Gramelsberger has to be canceled due to illness.
We hope to see you next week for Anna Tuschling’s lecture on “Digitality as a Triad: From the Love Letter to Emotion AI”.
Abstract:
Current developments in the fields of simulation and artificial intelligence (AI) have shown that the complexity of digital tools has exceeded the level of human understanding. We can no longer comprehend, understand or explain the results that AI delivers. Even AI deceptions and hallucinations are now almost impossible to detect. This raises the question of the relationship between humans and their technology anew. Are technologies as instruments useful extensions of human capabilities, as it was understood in the classical philosophy of technology, or are we now extensions of our technologies? Will AI dominate and manipulate us in the near future?
This event is part of our winter term 2025/26 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Digitality as a Triad: From the Love Letter to Emotion AI - Anna Tuschling (Bochum)
2025-10-29 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
The lecture presents various historical and contemporary concepts of digitality that highlight the three characteristics of digital systems: discreteness, arbitrariness, and systematicity. In short, digitality is often understood as a triad that applies not only to modern electronic computers but also to analog sign and writing systems. The lecture examines this form of digital complexity in terms of its epistemic and ontological status on the one hand, and in relation to historical changes in the coding of qualities such as affectivity and emotionality on the other. Although digitality as a triad allows us to draw a line from love letters to emotional AI as historically varying forms of coding, it by no means precludes a critique of AI. Rather, systematically focusing on digital complexity helps us understand how emotions are to be made computable and enables us in the humanities to define more clearly what “emotion” and “affect” mean in the approaches of affective computing and emotion AI.
This event is part of our winter term 2025/26 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Kick-off Event: Freedom of Research: A European Summit – Europe in Times of Division
2025-11-05 14:00 - 17:00 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
We cordially invite you to our kick-off event for the Freedom of Research Summit 2025, featuring an online talk by Ines Pohl, the Washington Bureau Chief at Deutsche Welle.
Program:
14:00–14:15: Welcome remarks
14:15–15:00: Talk by Ines Pohl (via Zoom)
15:00–15:30: Questions and discussion
15:30–15:45: Coffee break
15:45–16:45: World Café
16:45–17:00: Summary and end
Abstract:
The United States has long been a beacon for freedom of research and expression. People from around the globe have come to this country to enjoy high-quality laboratories, collaborate with international colleagues, and thrive in an ideal environment for brilliant minds. However, this landscape has changed dramatically since Donald Trump’s second term. Universities are facing challenges and lawsuits, while students and faculty are increasingly concerned about their status, often hesitant to speak on camera due to fears about the evolving work environment.
Ines Pohl, a Nieman Fellow who studied at Harvard for a year, has been covering these changes in the country for many years. She has engaged with professors and students on campus and, as a White House foreign press pooler, has had the opportunity to experience Donald Trump firsthand in the Oval Office.
In her talk, she will share her insights on what makes Trump still successful, what the world can learn from his rise, and how individuals can stand firm in their beliefs without resorting to self-censorship out of fear of retribution.
If you would like to attend, please send a short email to events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Freedom of Research: A European Summit – Europe in Times of Division
2025-11-06 09:00 - 17:00 | RWTH Aachen University – Super C, Templergraben 57, Aachen, 52062
Europe stands at a crossroads: Political polarization, disinformation, and social fragmentation threaten the cohesion of our continent. National interests clash, while external crises put increasing pressure on our democracies. At the same time, science is under strain – facing targeted disinformation, political interference, and restrictions on academic freedom. How can we uphold shared values, safeguard scientific exchange, and strengthen trust in European institutions in times of division?
Under the motto “Europe in Times of Divison”, the Summit will explore these pressing questions in various event formats and seek ways to build bridges – between nations, generations, and social groups, as well as between politics, business, and science.
This “This Summit has three parts”: Starting with a festive evening event on November 5, from 7:00 to 10:00 pm in the Coronation Hall in Aachen Town Hall. Following with a symposium on the next day on November 6, from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm in the Generali-Saal of SuperC at RWTH Aachen University. And ending with the Stand-up FoR Science NIGHT on 6 November, starting at 6:30 pm at the Apollo Bar & Kino, Aachen.
For more information about the program, check out the event website.
The Summit is organized by the Charlemagne Prize Foundation and RWTH Aachen University’s Knowledge Hub and Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re).

Computer Science and Computer Use in Public Administration in Switzerland (1960-1984) - Ricky Wichum
2025-11-12 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
In my presentation, I examine the digital culture of public administration in Switzerland from 1960 to 1990. The perspective on Switzerland is significant for the history of computing because the country lacks its own computer industry, but has an internationally well-connected computer science department at ETH Zurich. As I will demonstrate, numerous formal and informal interactions took place between ETH’s computer science department and government agencies, which significantly influenced both sides’ work with computers.
This presentation focuses on debates about data protection in Switzerland during the mid-1970s. I argue that data protection can be seen as a trading zone between academic computer science and administrative computer use. Despite their different interests, both sides agree to cooperate for a time. While the administration was eager to avoid federal laws and relied on the data protection mechanisms of the computer itself (and the computer scientists who promoted trust in the computer with public data), the academics used the bureaucratic routines of data processing and data protection as inspiration for teaching and research in the newly established discipline. Finally, I would like to speculate on whether elements of a political theory of digital societies can be found in the administrative knowledge of computer science.
This event is part of our winter term 2025/26 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Stochastic Systems - Dirk Baecker (Friedrichshafen)
2025-11-26 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
Digital complexity eludes human understanding not only because it is based on the synchronization of incommensurable systems, but also because each of these systems operates stochastically. We owe this insight to the “synthetic intelligence” (Brian Cantwell Smith) of machine learning models. An initially random variation of model assumptions enables the discovery and description of chance-dependent structures of an object or field ‘out there’. Stochastic systems “tame” (Ian Hacking) chance with the help of chance. This may apply not only to artificial systems, but also to neural, mental, and social systems. And perhaps their stochasticity is the condition of possibility for their synchronization, which can only ever be temporary. The lecture outlines a basic understanding of technology, society, consciousness, and the brain in order to plausibly demonstrate that we are dealing with stochastic systems here. It discusses three concepts that can be used to describe the synchronization of these systems. The concept of information comes from computer science and formulates a relational understanding of information. The concept of feedback comes from cybernetics and brings the observer into play. And the concept of chance comes from stochastics and establishes a medial as well as formal understanding of reality. Digital complexity arises from the unavailability of the difference between the systems involved.
This event is part of our winter term 2025/26 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Green Work and Environmental Knowledge
2025-11-27 10:00 - 19:00 | Stadtpalais, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
What is green work, who are green workers, and how are material cultures of practice and work and sustainable-society-in-transition co-produced? This workshop engages these questions, proceeding from the premise that, generally speaking, studies of environment, science, technology, society (STS), and energy have overlooked studies of material cultures of practice and work. Over the last half-century, public policies have invested increasingly large resources into environmental mitigation and statistics suggest that many environmentally-sustainable green jobs are being stimulated in the process. Yet green work remains an ill-defined “contested discourse” (Teelucksingh 2019) as evidenced in the disparity between US and European data on this subject (Apostel and Barslund 2024). This controversy and the knowledge deficit it implies raises questions of the character and culture of environmental mitigation, including the technologies, infrastructures, and material practices/social relations informed by environmental policy and green industrialization, as well as what a socially and environmentally-just society would look like for the workers expected to build and maintain it.
Schedule:
10:00 Morning coffee
10:15 Welcome and introductions: Matthew N. Eisler (University of Strathclyde)
11:00 Keynote: University Professor Ferdinanda Ponci (E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University)
11:40 Q&A, discussion
12:00-1:30 Lunch
1:30 Mila Davids (Eindhoven University)
2:00 Q&A, discussion
2:20 Lisa Claussmann (Paris-PSL)
2:50 Q&A, discussion
3:10 Katie Kung (LMU Munich)
3:40 Q&A, discussion
4:00 Afternoon coffee
4:15 Rosalind Donald (American University)
4:45 Q&A, discussion
5:30-6:30 Wrap-up discussion, moderated by Hannah Star Rogers or Phillip H. Roth
7:00 Dinner (Restaurant Elisenbrunnen)

Please find more information and the abstracts in this document.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Reasoning in the Age of AI: Philosophical Perspectives
2025-12-16 09:30 - 17:00 | Stadtpalais, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
This workshop explores the conceptual foundations of reasoning and asks whether artificial systems can genuinely be said to reason. It deals with how human thinking, which is shaped by beliefs, intentionality and experience, differs from the more formal, rule-based processes of AI. By discussing different perspectives from philosophy, cognitive science, and AI research, we aim to better understand whether artificial reasoning could ever be considered real reasoning, and what this might mean for our understanding.
Program:
09:30 Welcome (Gabriele Gramelsberger)
09:45 Markus Pantsar (RWTH Aachen): Towards an Epistemology of AI Reasoning
10:30 Jacqueline Bellon (University Tübingen): Reasoning by Accident and Intelligence beyond Belief: Is Statistical Reasoning Rational and are Humans?
11:15 Coffee Break
11:30 Jakob Ohlhorst (RWTH Aachen): Theory of Mind, (joint) Reasoning, and Large Language Models
12:15 Lunch
13:45 Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer (University Leipzig): Higher level Reason in Dialectical and Speculative Reflections. On the limited “Rationality” of Automatable Thinking
14:30 Stefania Centrone (Technical University Munich): Deductive Reasoning in Leibniz, Boole, and Beyond
15:15 Coffee Break
15:30 Daniel Wenz (RWTH Aachen): What is the Reason behind Artificial Reasoning?
16:15 Final Discussion
Please find the program and of the workshop in this document.
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Conference HaPoC 2025
2025-12-17 - 2025-12-19
The KHK c:o/re is proud to host the 8th edition of the international conference on History and Philosophy of Computing (HaPoC), taking place every two years under the auspices of the DHST/DLMPST Interdivisional Commission on History and Philosophy of Computing (www.hapoc.org).
Initiated in 2011, the conference has the aim of building an interdisciplinary community and environment to address the various facets of computing and computing technology, bringing together scholars from a broad range of disciplines to discuss the past and present cultures, practices and images of computing.
Find the program on our website or as a pdf document.

Keynote Speakers:
Liesbeth De Mol, CNRS/Université de Lille, France
Robin K. Hill, University of Wyoming, US
Alexandre Hocquet, Université de Lorraine, France
Program Committee:
Arianna Borrelli, TU Berlin and RWTH Aachen, Germany
Jianqing Chen, Washington University at Saint Louis, US
Jack Copeland, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ
Beatrice Fazi, University of Sussex, UK
Gabriele Gramelsberger, RWTH Aachen, Germany
Thomas Haigh, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, US
Andrei Korbut, CAIS Center for Advanced Internet Studies Bochum, Germany
Alfred Nordmann, TU Darmstadt, Germany
Mitsuhiro Okada, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan
Ben Peters, University of Tulsa, US
Mate Szabo, University of Southern California, US
Local Organising Committee at RWTH Aachen University:
Gabriele Gramelsberger (philosophy of science)
Stefan Böschen (sociology of science)
Dawid Kasprowicz (philosophy of science)
Phillip Roth (science and technology studies)
Saskia Nagel (ethics of science)
Torsten Voigt (science and technology studies)

A Portrait of the Scientist as a User - Alexandre Hocquet (Nancy)
2025-12-17 17:00 - 18:30 | RWTH Aachen University – Super C, Templergraben 57, Aachen, 52062
Abstract:
Why are computational chemists so peculiar ? The history of their relationship with software brings an interesting case study to understand how software may shape scientific activity. We present four key moments in this history — from 1962 to 2024 — to illustrate how visions of openness and user agency have evolved. These include a software-sharing initiative, controversies over licensing and user management, and debates about the Alphafold AI tool.
The multifaceted category of ‘users’ is key to understand discourses about opennness. We identify patterns of evolution in the relationship between software packages and the computational chemistry community. Throughout our narration, the notion of ‘users’ becomes more complex, in line with the commodification of programs into packages and the increasing complexity of the packages themselves.
Through the dyanmics of sharing, the legal consequences of software licenses, Non-Discolsure Agreements, and End-User Licence Agreements, we point out that the overall resulting pattern of evolution amounts to a kind of dispossession of scientists’ agency in their relationships with their tools. We propose to view the history of computational chemistry as the formation of a particular ‘repertoire’ where software is central and where the issue of the forms of collaboration and interaction among practitioners implies visions of openness of software development, circulation, maintenance and uses, all in friction.
This lecture is part of the 8th HaPoC Conference 2025 in Aachen.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

What Is a Computer Program? Or, How I Liberate(d) Myself as a Computer User - Liesbeth De Mol (Lille)
2025-12-18 09:30 - 10:30 | RWTH Aachen University – Super C, Templergraben 57, Aachen, 52062
Abstract:
The aim of this talk is to present the PROGRAMme project, a collective work amongst researchers from diverse disciplinary and ideological backgrounds who met for several years to work on the question “What is a computer program?”. In that project we develop a research programme which assumes it is possible /and/ necessary to work together across disciplinary and other boundaries to turn around a number of fundamental problems we are facing in connection to “programs”. In that regard, the project is ﬁrst of all a humanistic work: while programs have been interpreted before as an exempliﬁcation of cold, inhuman rationality, it is clear that more humanistic visions are possible. I present the project from a personal perspective and show how my version of PROGRAMme is deeply anchored in a more activist stance aimed at user liberations which, in my case, goes hand-in-hand with so-called academic nomadisms. I conclude with some concrete proposals for the future of the history and philosophy of computing.
This lecture is part of the 8th HaPoC Conference 2025 in Aachen.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Art Event: The Ambiguity of Sorting
2025-12-18 18:00 - 20:00 | RWTH Aachen University – Super C – Generali Saal 639, Templergraben 57, Aachen, 52062, Germany
The Ambiguity of Sorting
How do technologies of separation bring us together?
Digital systems are based on acts of transformation from continuity and unity into discreteness and separation. These acts of transformation have been popularized in the multiple ways in which humans engage with AI systems and other forms of digital technologies. Everything we do is transformed, one could say, automatically into data. It is transformed into discrete units that can be computed. Digital technologies have become more than tools for research; people produce knowledge with them, engage emotionally through and with these systems, generating new forms and spaces of intimacy. At the same time, these technologies carry a history of creating disconnections, failing to account for different ways of engaging with the world. They are the result of a certain imaginary of the human and intelligence, one that leaves aside many other existing ways to be in the world. What kind of communities are enabled by technologies? What kind of technologies are successful in bringing communities together? Can we imagine a history of technology that is based on plural ways of understanding intelligence and the human? How can we design technologies that bring people together? How can we imagine technologies that enable communities?
The Ambiguity of Sorting is a pop-up exhibition and a panel discussion that takes place during the 8th edition of the Conference of the Society for the History and Philosophy of Computing. The event brings together installation, performance, and conversations to discuss how the history of intelligent systems embodied ideas of intelligence, the human, and how we live together. With the panel, we invite to think of a different history of computing, one where those that were not thought to be fitting within their categories were creating their own technologies all along.
With contribution by: Sasha Bergstrom-Katz, Ren Loren Britton, and Verena Friedrich
Organization and moderation: Ana Maria Guzmán Olmos
Find out more about the artists and their artworks on this website.
Header photo: Sasha Bergstrom-Katz, On the Subject of Tests: Opening Boxes, 2022. Video.

Desktop to Discourse: Philosophy Born of Wordstar and VisiCalc - Robin Hill (Laramie)
2025-12-19 09:30 - 10:30 | RWTH Aachen University – Super C, Templergraben 57, Aachen, 52062
Abstract:
While the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on Philosophy and Computers started its mission with community tech help and suggestions, the path proceeded through technique, practice, and application to philosophy. To explore interesting stages along the way, this talk identifies and follows features of office software through their effects and implications to emerging philosophical questions. Some are known, some are trivial, but we find questions of potential depth concerning the affordances and constraints of naming, values, separation, and structure, all appropriate for the philosophy of computing.
This lecture is part of the 8th HaPoC Conference 2025 in Aachen.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Reimagining Cities: Computational Thinking in the Post War Period - Nathalie Bredella (Hanover)
2026-01-07 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
This event is part of our winter term 2025/26 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Did the Computer Drive Science? Hardware Development and Digital Complexity in the 20th Century - Ulf Hashagen (Munich)
2026-01-21 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
The assumption that economic, technological and scientific development is driven by technological
determinism is widespread in politics, business, and society, as well as among scientists and
engineers. A notable example of this belief is the current notion that advances in scientific
knowledge are inextricably linked to the development of AI technology. Since the AI boom in the
2010s was based on the particular potential of graphics processing units (GPUs) for implementing
deep learning algorithms, the question arises as to what extent modern science in the 20th century
was already based on computers and driven by hardware innovations.
A historical review should enable a critical examination of this assumption from a broader historical
perspective. The lecture addresses the question of the extent to which the development of computer
hardware and scientific development have influenced each other since the invention of the computer
in the 1940s. Historical research has shown that the design and development of the first computers
was primarily driven by scientific problems in war research. From the mid-1950s onwards,
universities and non-university research institutions increasingly entered into “alliances with
industry” in the planning and production of new computers and eventually became customers of the
computer industry. How this bilateral producer-customer relationship and the trilateral relationship
between the computer industry, the state, and science have developed since the 1950s in terms of
research funding, the equipping of scientific institutions with computers, and their use by scientists
from various disciplines is a question that has received relatively little attention in historical research
to date.
These questions are discussed against the backdrop that, since the 1970s, the history of technology
has been committed to a model of contextualized historiography and has sought to prove in
numerous studies that the assumption that technology is an autonomous factor in the continuous
transformation of the human environment is a naïve idea.
This event is part of our winter term 2025/26 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Digital Complexity in Historical Perspective: Lessons from the Study of Technological Transitions in Data Production and Visualization - Charlotte Bigg (Paris)
2026-02-11 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
