Third annual conference of the Collaborative Research Center Media of Cooperation, University of Siegen, 25-26 September 2018
Everybody talks about ‘digitization’, but it is the ‘digital’ itself that needs to be critically discussed and re-assessed. What kind of media specificity characterizes a ‘digitalisat’, or are digital media already dissolved in sensoria, mediation and practices?
We are currently faced with a new generation of media: ‘sensor media’ are taking control across a broad spectrum of our society and societal discourses. The promise of a more general ‘digital sensibility’ is associated with smart environments, social robots, augmented reality, 4D printing, and tactile-visual intersensoriality. As a result, black boxes break and are torn asunder and anthropometric scaling parameters of the media and social sciences come into play. Since Ed Hutchins famous book ‘Cognition in the Wild’, distributed agency is expanding and is no longer limited to human activity. Media also adapt themselves to their natural surroundings under digital conditions. However, there is a big chasm between the ambition of media studies to explain the sensitivities of a digital culture and the scientific practices of everyday digital life.