New Cluster Publication Series »Raue Reihe«
Edited by Horst Bredekamp with a First Issue by Regine Hengge on »The Essential Role of Microbes in Planetary Metabolism«
The academic series »Raue Reihe / Raw Studies« is a new publication organ of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« edited by Horst Bredekamp. Modeled on so-called »grey literature« formats, such as the preprints of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin or the legendary Merve volumes, its issues will appear at irregular intervals and aim to support the publishing of Cluster literature in terms of processes, and rapidity, spontaneity, and process character. Its title, »Raue Reihe«, emphasizes the resistance of matter that continues to be the decisive determination of existence in all its varieties in our digital age.
The German word ›Rauheit‹ (roughness, rawness) is associated with the porous, haptically perceptible, with the unpolished yet all the more strongly contoured, stressing the experimental character of the texts presented. In the best sense, these publications should be in the avant-garde realm of the tactile, experimental, risk-taking, and thesis-forming. Thematically, the »Raue Reihe« deals with fundamental theories, concepts and questions regularly discussed at the Cluster of Excellence. These include – possibly as topics for future issues – the concept of ›energeia‹; the possibilities of differentiation between the organic and non-organic world; divergence as a possible bridge in the sense of a general morphology; the definition of life as the origin of latency in directed energy; the concept of activity, for example through temperature fluctuation and the significance of scaling. Cluster members with ideas for contributions or topical suggestions are welcome to discuss these with the editor or project coordinator Elisabeth Obermeier (moa.publishing [at] hu-berlin.de).
The first issue titled »The Biological Foundation of Sustainability: The Essential Role of Microbes in Planetary Metabolism« is by Regine Hengge. Her text attempts a fundamental planetary determination of the role of microbes for life on Earth and the comprehensive interrelation between all forms of being.
The next issue by Christian Kassung and Alwin Cubasch is dedicated to the theory of filtering. Printed copies of the first issue are now available through Horst Bredekamp and MoA Publishing and will be released as Open Access E-Books through De Gruyter in the near future.