summaery2025: Projects

Critical Animism

Project information

submitted by
Mathias Schönher

Co-Authors
Jenny Brockmann, Henning Schmidgen, Mathias Schönher, Aleksandra Selivanova

Mentors
Jenny Brockmann, Henning Schmidgen, Mathias Schönher, Aleksandra Selivanova

Faculty:
Media

Degree programme:
Media Studies (Master of Arts (M.A.)),
Media Art and Design (Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.)),
Media Studies (Bachelor of Arts (B.A.))

Type of project presentation
Presentation

Semester
Sommersemester2025

Exhibition Location / Event Location
  • Berkaer Straße 1

Available during summaery opening hours


Project description

The research project »Animism/Machinism« will provide insights into the international, transdisciplinary conference »Planet Uncanny: Redistributing Subjectivities across Technology, Nature, and Society,« taking place from December 3 to 5, 2025, at the Bauhaus Museum Weimar. The starting point of the conference is the observation that the feeling of the uncanny is becoming more prevalent in our interactions with technology, encounters with nature, and investigations of the economic and ecological conditions of our existence. For instance, artificial intelligences are capable of constantly irritating humans by producing texts and images largely autonomously. Similar experiences can be conveyed today by scientific research into the cognitive and social abilities of plants and animals. Additionally, current debates refer to a »merging between capitalism and animism« and, in view of significant ecosystem destruction, to the »ecological uncanny.«

The research project is based at the Chair of Media Theory and History of Science and is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

Email: mathias.schoenher[at]uni-weimar.de

Exhibition Location / Event Location

Events

Book presentation: Mathias SCHÖNHER, »Die Naturphilosophie von Deleuze« Kritischer Animismus

Pre-release book presentation: Mathias SCHÖNHER, »Die Naturphilosophie von Deleuze. System und Methode seines späten Hauptwerks ›Was ist Philosophie?‹« (Including an excursus on Guattari’s animism). The book will be published by Transcript in August.

  • Begin: 18:00 pm
  • End: 18:30 pm
  • Location: Berkaer Straße 1