Hermann von Helmholtz Center for Cultural Technology

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The Hermann von Helmholtz Center for Cultural Technology (HZK) is a central institute of the Humboldt University of Berlin (HU) . As a central institute, it pursues project-related multidisciplinary research, interdisciplinary teaching and its design. Cultural technology research combines research into scientific collections, research-related object and material-oriented teaching and a new type of science communication in the open laboratory of the Humboldt Forum and in the animal anatomical theater . On the basis of a unique infrastructure, the HZK combines historical and future-oriented perspectives on the level of practices, materials and objects of collecting, research and design in cultural technology research. This creates a model for the Humboldtian University of the future in the heart of the disciplinary university in the tradition of the Bauhaus.

The HZK has been headed by Wolfgang Schäffner since 2012.

The technical picture

The research center “The Technical Image” was founded in April 2000 at the Hermann von Helmholtz Center for Cultural Technology and the Institute for Art and Visual History. Horst Bredekamp took over the management until 2005 , until 2018 "Das Technische Bild" was headed by Matthias Bruhn , and Katja Müller-Helle has been the new director since September 2019.

The aim of the research is to investigate the functions of images and imaging processes in the scientific , technical and medical fields. Images are viewed as the results of the most varied of test arrangements , apparatus, image carriers and forms of reproduction and range from hand-made anatomical book illustrations to dynamic recording of measurement data . They have special aesthetic properties in common, with which results can be visualized and findings illustrated that would obviously not be available in any other way. The object of the project are these pictorial tools, which serve to acquire scientific and technical knowledge and impart knowledge . From the combination of scientific visualization strategies and image-critical means, a theory of visual cognition is to be developed, which can contribute to the examination of the imaging as well as the description techniques .

Theory and history of cultural techniques

The concept of cultural technology , the historical and theoretical penetration of which is a focus of the Helmholtz Center, is based on the interplay of image, writing and number, which was examined as an example by the research group Bild Schrift Zahl (BSZ).

The BSZ research group was funded by the German Research Foundation in 2001–2007 . The individual sub-projects of the research group "Image-Font-Number" were led by professors from the Humboldt University of Berlin , the Technical University of Berlin and the Free University of Berlin . The topic between technology and culture was dealt with under the impression of the “digital revolution”, which is characterized by the extensive use of computers and open computer networks far beyond the sciences.

The spectrum of BSZ research covers image, writing and numbers as the basic media of modern communication - in their historical genesis up to their current effectiveness in digital coding, storage and processing. Individual topics range from arithmetic and calendar techniques of the cultures of Mesopotamia, the formation of Greek geometry and the Greek alphabet, medieval writing, drawing and arithmetic forms or early book printing to hypertexts, technical images, visual arguments and programmed models.

Of course, it was not possible to cover the entire field of image, writing and number, which in a certain way represents a definition of all cultural technology. The group drew on the rich detailed descriptions of different individual sciences and concentrated on fault lines and differences that lead - or have led - to media transformations and transfers. The focus was on the one hand on a media historical analysis and on the other hand on the current process of digitization. More generally speaking, it was primarily about the mathematically oriented symbol techniques and the breaks in these symbol techniques.

The term »cultural technology«, which describes the work of the Helmholtz Center, is thus defined more precisely - and also restricted. It is not about an organically grown, even comprehensive picture of "culture", but rather a determination of essential elements at their points of origin and change. The goal is not the complete inventory, but the precise determination of the transfer of ideas, of culture and technology - up to and including intervention in current internal scientific discussion processes.

Projects

2001-2004

2004-2007

  • Representation as a cultural technique ( Horst Bredekamp , Pablo Schneider)
  • The literacy of mathematics ( Jochen Brüning , Gloria Meynen)
  • Pointing and referring ( Jochen Brüning , Gloria Meynen)
  • Cultural techniques: instruments of order ( Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum )
  • Image, writing, number in the Turing Galaxy ( Wolfgang Coy , Grassmuck )
  • Music and Mathematics ( Friedrich Kittler , Philip v. Hilgers, Ana Ofak)
  • From writing to trace ( Sybille Krämer , Gernot Grube, Werner Kogge)
  • Cultural techniques of synchronization ( Thomas Macho , Erich Hörl, Robert Dennhardt)
  • Clarification of the concept of a model ( Bernd Mahr , Reinhard Wendler, Jens Gulden)
  • The legibility of the world (Horst Wenzel, Jörn Münkner, Moritz Wedell)

Cluster of Excellence at the HZK

2012-2017

  • Cluster of Excellence »Image Knowledge Design. An interdisciplinary laboratory "

2018-2025

  • Cluster of Excellence Matters of Activity. Image space material

Web links