New Publication on Standardization and Naturalization

The German publication includes contributions among others from: Florian Sprenger, Anna Echterhölter, Stefan Rieger, Laura Moisi, Tobias Eichinger, MoA Member Patricia Ribault, Antonio Lucci, MoA member Martin Müller und Thomas Macho.

The thinking of »automatisms« is characterized by the opaque, the enigmatic and ghostly, or, in technical terms, by the thinking of the black box. Automatisms are processes which - according to the idea of the ›self-acting‹, αὐτός - are effective beyond human power of action, planning and control. Against this background, standardization and naturalization appear as two different and yet complementary processes through which culturally conditioned orders of knowledge, practices and technologies are transformed into a state of self-evidence - and thus conceal and obscure their historical genesis, their artificiality as well as their contingency.

This will be negotiated on the basis of 15 contributions, among others from media and cultural studies, the history of science, computer science, medical ethics and design theory. Accordingly, the volume forms a heterogeneous ensemble of historical scenarios and theoretical reflections, such as the medieval invention of military standards, the colonial practices of the metroclasm, the design history of the Frankfurt Kitchen and a critique of the manufacturing practices of synthetic biology.