Algorithms re:encode

The interdisciplinary research project "Re: Coding Algorithmic Culture" focuses on the question of how knowledge is organized in the digital. "Not least due to the penetration of algorithms into all areas of our lives, we have become accustomed to binary thinking," says Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Tuider, head of the Department of Sociology of Diversity.

Together with her colleagues in the departments of gender/diversity in informatic systems and the theory and practice of visual communication at the School of Art, she investigates how existing social inequalities and discriminations are perpetuated by algorithmically based collections, classifications and interpretations of data. "Especially the current discussions about Covid-19 show features of this binary thinking in many areas - sick vs. healthy, old vs. young, mouth guard or not - bundled in the question: which life is livable?" says Prof. Dr. Tuider. The project will be held digitally during the summer semester, including a discussion next Tuesday on the question of social distancing. "This pandemic makes the implicit and hidden matrices of social discrimination and inequality much more visible. While our social connection shifted almost exclusively to the internet, we are currently seeing how this affects our online lives as well" said Dr. Pinar Tuzcu.

In addition, the research project will also work concretely on how these discriminations and inequalities can be irritated or even rewritten. "To this end, we are planning a series of events in which critical, queer-feminist, anti-racist and decolonial knowledge will be further advanced in the digital-real space," explained Prof. Dr. Johanna Schaffer. Innovative event formats such as hackathons, game jams, coding workshops, participatory design labs, design noir experiments, performances, exhibitions, and video and text analyses will be used. In the summer semester, the project invites to four labs, on 12.5. the lab "Social distancing in times of social media" will take place. 

Contact person:

Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Tuider
Sociology of Diversity

FB Gesellschaftswissenschaften
University of Kassel
Nora-Platiel-Str. 5
34127 Kassel

Mail: tuider@uni-kassel.de