23/2 - Tech | Imaginations

Browsing 23/2 - Tech | Imaginations by Author "Ernst, Christoph"

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  • Article
    On (Techno-)Imagination, Schemata and Media – Preliminary Remarks
    Ernst, Christoph (2023) , S. 18-28
    The text deals with the connection between imagination and media by focusing on the notion of 'techno-imagination'. The problem of the 'schema' is identified as the connecting element between classical theories of imagination and media theory. In an essayistic passage through arguments by Immanuel Kant, Charles S. Peirce, and Cornelius Castoriadis, three different approaches to the relationship between imagination and schema are discussed and then related to Vilém Flusser's notion of techno-imagination. The text concludes with an exposition of further research questions. It is argued that for a contemporary theory of 'media imagination', the relationship between the constitution of semiotic representation and computer-based media-synthetization needs to be analyzed.
  • Journal Issue
    Tech | Imaginations
    (2023)
    These imaginations reveal a lot of the political and ideological self-descriptions of societies, hence the (techno-)imaginary also functions as a kind of epistemic tool. Concepts of the imaginary therefore have experienced an increasing attention in cultural theory and the social sciences in recent years. In particular, work from political philosophy, but also approaches from science and technology studies (STS) or communication and media studies are worth mentioning here. The term "techno-imagination", coined by Vilém Flusser in the early 1990s, refers to the close interconnection of (digital) media and imaginations, whose coupling can not only be understood as a driver of future technology via fictional discourses (e.g. science fiction), but much more fundamentally also as a constitutive element of society and sociality itself, as Castoriadis has argued. In the first part of the issue several theoretical contributions add new aspects to the discussion of socio-technical imaginaries, while in the second part a workshop held in January 2022 at the CAIS in Bochum is documented, in which the case of the imaginaries of “Future Internets” was discussed.