Project Description

Challenges of Future Civil Societies

I am convinced that philosophical knowledge is necessary to reflect the challenges of technological developments. Changing life-worlds come with changing politics and ethical problems. Philosophy is able to relate technological innovation with conceptual implications and historical practices. Dystopias of singularities and uploaded minds seem to block the view for the reality of technological developments. Question of automation, surveillances technologies and social robots are what needs to be discussed in our civil societies. Privacy, equality and social justice are at stake here. To understand the challenges we need to be ready to take the discussion into a broader context, were  politics, economics and science work together.

cooperations

My take on the issue is all about understanding how we reflect ourselves in the technology we are building: What image of human or even posthuman life is embodied in the machines that shape working and living environments? Every device incorporates not only an image of human life but also values and norms of efficiency and smoothness. Those values are rarely reflected upon. They remain hidden behind the narrative of functionality. Functionality is never neutral. It shapes all relations and interactions amongst humans, technologies, animals and all the possible intertwinings.

In my work as advisor in technology, arts and media I aim at uncovering these hidden aspects of technology and their consequences for business cultures and new work environments. To date I have co-operated with the leading software developer SAP and innovation agencies (Key Values, Hamburg). The phenomenological dimension of embodied cognition is another important field. I have been consulting the coaching and personal training institute NEUN (Hamburg) on the philosophical concepts of body and mind, their historical development and contemporary neuroscientific framing.

Public Presentations

(2020) The Spirit of the Machine, invited presentation at the online conference Shamanism and Digitalisation, organised by Foundation for Shamanic Studies Europe

(2019) Public discussion on experience of time and movie screening, Philip Gröning: Mein Bruder heißt Robert und ist ein Idiot, Rex Cinema, Darmstadt, Germany

(2017) Public talk: Perceptual Ecologies: Inhabiting a Sensor-driven Niche, invited talk at Night of Philosophy, Helsinki

(2017) Public talk: “Being Human” at the roundtable tech-forum of SAP, Daimler, IBM, Kellog, Berlin

(2016) Interview on IoT, Sensors, And All Things Digital: Can We Handle It All?, in: https://www.theguardian.com/sap-partner-zone/2016/oct/04/iot-sensors-and-all-things-digital-can-we-handle-it-all

(2016) Public talk: Embodiment, Big Data and the City, 10. Contato Festival, Multimedia Cooperativo, in cooperations with Nomads, Institute for Architecture, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Campus Sao Carlos, Brazil

(2016) Public Talk: Aisthetic Dimensions of Smart Environments, invited talk and round table discussion at Redbull Station Sao Paulo, in cooperation with Metabody and Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil

(2013) Public talk: Der Welt verbunden und bei sich selbst – Gedanken zum Zeitbegriff, invited speaker at the conference Bieler Philosophietage 2013, Biel, Switzerland

(2013-2015) Organization of a public lecture series: 10 Minuten Philosophie (weekly) at Leuphana University Lüneburg

(2010-2016) Public talks in the lecture series 10 Minuten Philosophie at Leuphana University Lüneburg

 

Let’s Work Together

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Please contact my for counseling in future of technology, ethics of AI and Big Data, culture change, automation and maschine learing. I also offer journalistic and scientific writing as conceptual advice in culture, arts and media. Looking forward to hearing from you!

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