Prof. Dr. Jens Schröter organized together with Prof. Dr. Mersmann, Institute of Art History Bonn and Dr. Svea Bräunert, ZEM Brandenburg (and subsitute Prof. in Bonn in WS 25/26) a lecture series ABSTRACTION TODAY!

Here is more information!

From automated navigation to weather forecasts, data visualizations, and painting, abstraction has an undeniable presence in the contemporary world. Yet, it not only represents but also creates worlds. It is an operative concept that likewise possesses an imaginary thrust for perceiving things otherwise. As such, abstraction comes in many different forms: It is an aesthetic, a technology, an epistemology, and a practice. Therefore, it is also a political attitude, a mode of description, a tool of complexity reduction, and an instruction for intervention. Depending on its context and use, it can take on radically different connotations, ranging from dehumanizing to appealing, from affirmative to critical, from incorporated to autonomous.
Taking its cue from the different meanings and applications of abstraction, the international lecture series “Abstraction Today: The Real and the Imaginary” is designed as an interdisciplinary endeavor with a focus on visual media and digital culture. Most digital technologies (like networks, computer simulation or artificial intelligence) and correlated practices are closely connected to different forms of abstraction on different levels. To do justice to the complexity of the phenomenon, the series brings together a group of international scholars, artists, and curators who speak on abstraction today as it unfolds in fields such as art, photography, film, design, image science, visual culture studies, philosophy, and more. Grounding the inquiries into the contemporary conditions of abstraction are contributions focusing on its historical lineage, most importantly its emergence within the discourse of modernism to be understood in its global and postcolonial plurality.

In a new episode of the legendary podcast »Fotografie Neu Denken« Prof. Dr. Jens Schröter discusses with Andy Scholz the recent changes in image culture and the role of media studies.

Here is the episode.

(and here is the link to my first interview in »Fotografie Neu Denken« from 2021)

In an interview with the Volkswagen-Foundation Prof. Dr. Jens Schröter speaks about the changes and continuities in scientifc practice when working with AI.

Here is the interview.

Martina Leeker from the University of Cologne conducted this interview on artistic research.

Here is the link to the video.

It is an honour to be included in the last book Achim Szepanski, the founder of legendary music label MILLE PLATEAUX, could edit before his death in 2024.

Rest in peace dear Achim.

Serkan Bulut will be fellow at the chair of Prof. Dr. Jens Schröter in Summer 2025

Project: AI Technologies in the Media and a Techno-Determinist Inquiry: German News Media and Audience Perspective

Serkan Bulut is currently a lecturer in the Department of Journalism at Çukurova University/Türkiye. As a recipient of the 2219 TÜBİTAK Post-Doctoral Research Scholarship, he completed his postdoctoral research on artificial intelligence and news media at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 2024. He is now conducting a research project titled "AI Technologies in the Media and a Techno-Determinist Inquiry: German News Media and Audience Perspective," under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jens Schröter at the Department of Media Studies, University of Bonn. His research interests include digital media and journalism, emerging technologies and their implications for the news media, Google journalism (SEO), journalism and artificial intelligence, and data visualization, among others.

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Gao Jing will be fellow at the chair of Prof. Dr. Jens Schröter in Winter 2025/26.

Project: Lessing´s Theory of the Artistic Medium in Laocoön and Its Modern Interpretations

This study revisits Gotthold Ephraim Lessing´s Laocoön: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry, a foundational text in the history of media theory, and explores its modern reinterpretations. Through a twofold approach, the research aims to reassess the theoretical structure and contemporary significance of Lessing´s artistic medium theory. The first part undertakes a systematic analysis of Laocoön from the perspective of media studies, focusing on the ontological foundations, functional framework, and critical discourse of the theory of artistic medium in Laocoön. The second part traces the modern interpretive trajectories of Laocoön, offering a critical reflection on prevailing paradigms in modern artistic medium theory and evaluating the enduring theoretical value and cultural significance of Lessing’s media aesthetics in contemporary scholarly contexts.

This fellowship is funded by Nanjing University. The research project is part of the Major Project in Art Studies under the National Social Science Fund of China, titled “The Intermedia Construction of Art Theory and Its Epistemological Study.” 

See the related paper by Jens Schröter: The Laocoon Moment.

The project »The Computerized Palate: Digital Technologies and the ›lower senses‹«aims to establish the field of culinary sensorial research, contributing a new dimension to the theory of computerization. Departing from the focus on the visual and tactile aspects in the media theory of human-computer interaction, it explores the computerization of the ›lower‹ senses of smell and taste. This initiative seeks to forge an interdisciplinary domain that integrates media studies, AI and sensor research, culinary arts, and wine analytics. By bridging sensory perception with digitalization, it redefines contemporary challenges such as analog-to-digital translation, concerns about AI replacing human subjectivity, and the limits of digitalization. Research into the culinary and sensory realms, prompted by challenges posed by sensor technology, machine learning, and generative AI (such as ChatGPT), has been largely overlooked. Mathematics now captures human situational and seemingly incomputable aspects. Developments suggest that culinary recommendations will increasingly rely on seemingly objective computerized scaling and mathematical means, rather than narrative descriptions based on subjective sensory perceptions. Does this new technological premise alter human culinary-sensory perception, not only in gastronomy but also in daily life? How sensory does digital mediation become, and how can cultural studies reflect on this phenomenon?

The project was conceived by Dr. Felix Hüttemann and Prof. Dr. Jens Schröter and will start 1.4.2025.

Here is the official announcement by the university of Bonn!

Here is the link to the website of the project!

UFOs are a central and virulent topic of contemporary aesthetics: as objects mediated by the media, they are also touchstones for the mechanisms of mediated reality itself. This applies both to the possibility of conducting a discourse about UFOs at all, i.e. recording and documenting these ‘unknown flying objects’, and to the dissemination of narratives about UFOs in science fiction. Against this background, UFOs are understood as media-aesthetic objects that are used to negotiate what is ‘real’ and how the media contribute to the construction of reality.

Here it is!