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Katharina Meyer, M. A.

Media Policy Lab Medienanstalt Berlin-Brandenburg

Katharina Meyer

Polynocular Tech Lab

Technology development is often a process among experts. Behind factory gates and laboratory doors, developers work on hardware and software that influence our everyday lives and define the scope but also the limits of our actions. For example, when algorithms decide on the basis of data records into which risk category insured persons are grouped or which journalistic news are displayed to different people. The driving impulses of development are often market logic and scaling potential, not necessarily sensitivity for diverse user groups and technology assessment.

Educational institutions, on the other hand, can offer a free space in which technologies can not only be developed but also questioned. This is where the Polynocular Tech Lab project comes in. In the experimental set-up of a Springschool, students and practitioners from technical, artistic and humanities and social science contexts work together. The aim is not only to jointly deconstruct existing technologies, such as codes and machines, but also to rethink and develop prototypes in practice.

The summer school is a first phase of the Polynocular Tech Lab, which will then continue in the university context. The long-term goal is to build up a canon of methods and theory for transdisciplinary technology development that can be applied both in education and in practice.

Main research areas

  • Sociology and history of technology
  • History of science and ideas
  • critical design and interdisciplinarity research in innovation contexts
  • Media culture

Curriculum Vitae

  • Since 2013: Curator at the re:publica for Special Tasks and Science
  • Since 2016: Curator at the STATE Festival for Open Science, Art and Society
  • 2014/15 Project manager “Digital Humanities/DARIAH-DE” at the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany, joint project with 12 German universities on research in the humanities and cultural studies using digital methods and procedures
  • 2013/14 Research assistant at the Centre for Digital Cultures (CDC), Leuphana University Lüneburg, Chair Dr. Mercedes Bunz (Hybrid Publishing Lab)
  • 2010 – 2012 M.A. at the Free University of Berlin, Arts and Media Administration
  • 2006 – 2010 B.A. at KIT, ZAK and HfG Karlsruhe, main focus: History of Science and Technology, History of Culture and Art, Applied Cultural Studies

Lectures

  • Meyer, K. (2017, June). Eclectic Memory Game of Modernism. Digital Bauhaus Summit (Track: Modern Talking), Weimar.
  • Meyer, K. (2017, June). Collective Creativity – A short story about unexpected encounters and old friends. .process Festival, Dortmund.
  • Meyer, K. (2016, November). Unfolding the Truth: The Personal Consequences of Leaking & Whistleblowing. Disruption Network Lab, Berlin.

Publications

  • Meyer, K. (2018). Adaptation processes of technological innovations in activism and art. In Kommission “Digitalisierung im Alltag” d. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Volkskunde (ed.), (H)acktivism and Participation? On the Political Dimension of the Digital. Tagungsband, Kommunikation@Gesellschaft (forthcoming).

Katharina Meyer, M. A.

Media Policy Lab Medienanstalt Berlin-Brandenburg

Fellow at CAIS in December 2017