The research project 'Animism|Maschinism. Configurations of Critique between Science, Art and Technology' offers insights into the current state of research at Summaery 2024 in the bauhaus.medien.bühnen Labor. 

The research project "Animism/Machinism" provides insights into the transdisciplinary conference "Assistants, Avatars, Atmospheres. Perspectives on Animism in Media Studies and Media Art", which took place at the Faculty of Media from January 24 to 26, 2024. The aim of the conference was to bring together researchers from German-speaking countries who have demonstrated the relevance of animist perspectives in recent years and to firmly anchor the debate on these perspectives in media studies. The conference, which addressed the question of animism with a view to current developments in media technology, focused on three figures that are becoming increasingly apparent: the new assistants, including the currently much-discussed chatbots such as ChatGPT, the avatars that accompany and encounter us in virtual worlds, and the technical-media atmospheres that smart cities and other developments based on the Internet of Things bring with them.

The research project is based at the Chair of Media Theory and History of Science (Schmidgen) and is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). 

The Summaery is the annual exhibition of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and takes place once a year in June. All faculties of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar take part in the Summaery and the events take place at more than 60 locations.

Link to the project site