In his KISDtalk, Thomas Hawranke will shift our human-centric perspective. He will sketch out multiple views on the ›mediated animal‹ which will enhance the complexity on the view of animals as phenomena.
As a guest of the »Integrated Interactions Lab«, a research cluster supported by Prof. Dr. Carolin Höfler, Thomas Hawranke invites you to see the cultural ideas about ›the animal‹ through the lens of media art and artistic research. He will give an introduction to the philosophical field of Human-Animal-Studies (HAS). Along this path, different actors from this field serve as companions: Thom van Dooren, Donna Haraway, Isabelle Stengers. With these voices heard, he will focus on his post-doctoral research field of animals in video games, starting with the representation, adaptation and exploitation of animals within the media complex.
As part of his presentation, Thomas Hawranke will introduce three art projects which thematically cover different aspects: He will talk about video game modding as activism, animal mainstreaming, the transfer of academic discussions into the subcultures of play and the aesthetics of hunting and the science of shot. The design of animality is crucial to all three projects. To open up the discussion, he will end the presentation with some questions: Why should we care? And especially: Why does this subject have any importance in the time of global crisis?
Thomas Hawranke
Thomas Hawranke is an artist and researcher. He received a diploma in Audiovisual Media from the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM) and a Ph.D. in Media Art from the Bauhaus-University in Weimar. In 2005, he joined the artist group susigames, was an artist in residence at the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) Karlsruhe and held a scholarship for artistic research in video games. In 2009, he co-founded Paidia Institute, an interdisciplinary research group operating between art, technology, and science. Right now, he is a post-doctoral researcher and lecturer at Transmedia Space at KHM, with a strong focus on artistic research, installation art and human-animal-machine relationships. His post-doctoral project centers around animal representation in mainstream media like video games, YouTube etc. His art projects include Grand Ape Town (2017), Play as Animals (2019), The Caller (2020), Wild man has a soft lure (2021). http://thomashawranke.com
You can join the KISDtalk online via zoom. The talk will start at 5:30 pm (CEST), the session is open from 5 pm on.
https://th-koeln.zoom.us/j/88240480389
Meeting-ID: 88240480389
Code: KISDtalks
Funded by the Digital Learning Transfer Fellowship,
Stifterverband & Reinhard Frank Foundation