FKO 615:  Media Upheavals. Media Cultures and Media Aesthetics at the Beginning of the 20th century and in the crossover to the 21st century

• Subject Area: Humanities ; Computer Science, Systems and Electrical Engineering
• Term: from 2002 to 2010
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5484990

The cultural science research unit "Media Upheavals" examines the prerequisites and structures of the media upheavals at the beginning of the 20th century and in the crossover to the 21st century, in terms of their meaning for the emergence and transformation of media cultures, and for the development of media aesthetics - while considering the technological factors involved. A guiding premise of the investigation is the observation that media upheavals suppose comprehensive, discontinuous, structural changes within media history. The expression "media upheaval" may marginalize such historiographical terms as "epoch threshold" or "turning-point" and synonyms such as "sea change" or "breakthrough". From a chronological perspective, the evolutionary processes of media history have again and again gone through the phases of an abrupt crossover into a hitherto unknown quality in terms of media development. They indicate a historically new singular level in media development and in the history of perception. It is not possible to determine the direction of such an upheaval. It can include technological factors and anthropological dimensions of the media history as well as inherited social and cultural institutions or aesthetic traditions. The target of the cultural science research unit is the contrastive comparison of the two structurally authoritative media upheavals of the 20th century, which can be defined as a breakthrough to the "analogous" media at the beginning of the 20th, and as a "digital" breakthrough at the turn of the 21st century.

• DFG Programme: CRC/Cultural Studies Research Centres

Completed projects

• A01 - Medienanthropologie und Medienavantgarde (Project Heads Pfeiffer, Karl Ludwig ;  Schnell, Ralf )
• A02 - Mediale Integration von ethnischen Minderheiten (Project Heads Geißler, Rainer ;  Pöttker, Horst )
• A03 - Soziale und anthropologische Faktoren der Mediennutzung (Project Head Hejl, Peter M. )
• A04 - Media-Dynamics (Project Heads Rusch, Gebhard ;  Schanze, Helmut )
• A05 - Industrialisierung der Wahrnehmung (Project Head Kreimeier, Klaus )
• A06 - Changing Protest and Media Cultures (Project Heads Baringhorst, Sigrid ;  Rohde, Markus )
• A07 - Cultural Geography of the Analog/Digital Media Upheaval (Project Head Döring, Jörg )
• A08 - Informatics Education and E-Learning for Active Participation in the Second Media Upheaval (Project Heads Brück, Rainer ;  Schubert, Sigrid )
• A10 - Trance Media and New Media at Two Thresholds of Globalisation (1900 and today) (Project Head Schüttpelz, Erhard )
• B01 - Intermedialität im europäischen Surrealismus (Project Head Roloff, Volker )
• B02 - Macht- und Körperinszenierungen in der italienischen Medienkultur (Project Head Hülk-Althoff, Walburga )
• B04 - Formen des vorspanns in Hollywood und im westeuropäischen Autorenfilm seit 1950 (Project Head Stanitzek, Georg )
• B06 - Net Literature (Project Head Gendolla, Peter )
• B07 - Virtualizing Sculpture: Reconstruction, Presentation, Installation (Project Heads Bogen, Manfred ;  Schröter, Jens ;  Winter, Gundolf )
• B08 - Typographie im Umbruch (Project Head Stanitzek, Georg )
• B09 - Media Narrations and Media Games (Project Head Leschke, Rainer )
• B10 - End User Development of Software Applications - An Exemplary Analysis of a Media Technological Challenge? (Project Head Wulf, Volker )
• MT - Methods and Tools for Computer-Based Media Analysis (Project Heads Freisleben, Bernd ;  Grauer, Manfred )
• Z - Administration (Project Head Gendolla, Peter )

• Applicant Institution: Universität Siegen
• Co-Applicant Institution: Fraunhofer-Institut für Intelligente Analyse- und Informationssysteme (IAIS); Philipps-Universität Marburg; Technische Universität Dortmund; Universität Trier
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Peter Gendolla