Centre for Digital Cultures
Organisational unit: Institute
Organisation profile
The Centre for Digital Cultures (CDC) unites a large range of research and development activities dedicated to the digital shift. It engages in knowledge creation and transfer, experimental and interventionist media practices, and research in disciplines such as media, social and cultural studies. The CDC aims to both understand the epochal digital shift through excellent research, and to become one of the major European forces that shape digital cultures to come.
The CDC has seen a remarkable uptake of successful funding bids. The major projects are funded by the European Fund for Regional Development (EFRE) and the State of Lower Saxony, by the German Research Council (DFG) and the VW Foundation respectively. Additional smaller projects are supported by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Transmediale, and the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF). The CDC has by now more than 80 researchers and cultural producers from all over the world. They work on questions such as:
- Transmedia: How can we understand and develop new formats for entertainment as well as culture and education, merging different forms of production, participation, distribution and aesthetics?
- User and Audience Research: What kind of methods enable us to understand new usage and consumption patterns, addressing digital cultures’ both global and local audiences?
- Gamification: Computer games have a growing relevance in contemporary life, not only due to the games themselves, but also through their metaphors and methods. What new opportunities arise?
- Common Media: Which new forms of citizenship and cultural/political engagement are developing in the digital age, and how can we understand, enact and strengthen them?
- Net based Public Broadcast: How can publicly funded provision of information, education, culture and entertainment adapt to the internet? How can new versions of basic provision be realized?
- Hybrid Publishing: Which avenues for the communication and dissemination of knowledge beyond classrooms and research articles can be constructed, adapting the cultural and economic logic of the digital age?
- Computer Simulation: From climate change to mass panics: Knowledge production based on computer simulation is shaping our worldview. How can we analyse and understand its effects?
Research and development at the CDC traverse boundaries between the academic sector, culture and the arts, industry, governmental bodies and civil society. It is a conducive, productive and experimental research environment, in which researchers and entrepreneurs, activists and artists, producers and hackers, thinkers and doers broker dynamic connections. Visions, blueprints and experimental findings get exposed to real-world conditions. The development of innovative teaching formats is a further crucial part of the mix: Leuphana Digital School is bringing knowledge and education online, and a new English-speaking Bachelor in Digital Media started in autumn 2013, developed in cooperation with Leuphana’s Institute for the Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media, Hamburg Media School and Hongkong City University. The result is a new, open and engaged form of research and development for Europe’s digital cultures.
Topics
- Transmedia
- User and Audience Research
- Gamification
- Common Media
- Net based Public Broadcast
- Hybrid Publishing
- Computer Simulation
- Artistic Research
- New Teaching Formats
- Conferences
Speaking back to Theory. Africanist Migration Research beyond the Categories
Laura Lambert (Organiser), Franzisca Zanker (Organiser), Mary B. Setrana (Organiser), Leander Kandilige (Organiser), Samuel Agblorti (Organiser) & Jesper Bjarnesen (Organiser)
15.03.2023 → 18.03.2023Activity: Participating in or organising an academic or articstic event › Conferences › Research
Symposium Data and Technics
Irina Kaldrack (Speaker)
24.04.2014 → 25.04.2014Activity: Participating in or organising an academic or articstic event › Conferences › Research
Symposium "Passion Investments in Art Markets" 2011
Ulf Wuggenig (Organiser)
25.11.2011Activity: Participating in or organising an academic or articstic event › Conferences › Research
Table Talks Künstlerische Forschung des Labors Theaterforschung - UDK 2013
Ulf Wuggenig (Participant)
19.04.2013Activity: Participating in or organising an academic or articstic event › Conferences › Transfer
Tausend Ökologien
Mercedes Bunz (Organiser)
04.06.2013 → 05.06.2013Activity: Participating in or organising an academic or articstic event › Conferences › Research
Terms of Media I - 2015
Timon Beyes (Organiser)
17.06.2015 → 19.06.2015Activity: Participating in or organising an academic or articstic event › Conferences › Research
Terra Critica: Re-visioning the Critical Task of the Humanities in a Globalized World
Mercedes Bunz (Speaker)
07.12.2012 → …Activity: Participating in or organising an academic or articstic event › Conferences › Research
The Digital Games Research Association - DiGRA 2014
Paolo Ruffino (Speaker)
03.08.2014 → 06.08.2014Activity: Participating in or organising an academic or articstic event › Conferences › Research
The Invisible Man in the Digital Age: From Anonymity to Invisibility, A right to remain Unknown
Paula Bialski (Speaker)
02.02.2018Activity: Participating in or organising an academic or articstic event › Conferences › Education
The Terms of Media II: Actions - 2015
Timon Beyes (Organiser)
08.10.2015 → 10.10.2015Activity: Participating in or organising an academic or articstic event › Conferences › Research
The Whole Earth: California and the Disappearance of the Outside
Mercedes Bunz (Speaker)
21.06.2013 → 23.06.2013Activity: Participating in or organising an academic or articstic event › Conferences › Research
Transmediale - 2013
Paolo Ruffino (Speaker)
02.02.2013Activity: Participating in or organising an academic or articstic event › Conferences › Research
Visual Archives in the Digitale Age
Martin Warnke (Speaker)
15.06.2011Activity: Participating in or organising an academic or articstic event › Conferences › Research
Workshop Humanities and Social Sciences in Management Education: Writing, Researching, Teaching
Timon Beyes (Organiser)
05.06.2013 → 07.06.2013Activity: Participating in or organising an academic or articstic event › Conferences › Research
Workshop „Meta-Image Day 2012”
Jens-Martin Loebel (Speaker)
30.05.2012Activity: Participating in or organising an academic or articstic event › Conferences › Research
- Editor of series
meson press (Publisher)
Martina Leeker (Editor), Andreas Bernard (Editor), Armin Beverungen (Editor), Irina Kaldrack (Editor), Sascha Simons (Editor) & Florian Sprenger (Editor)
2015Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work › Editor of series › Research
meson press (Publisher)
Boris Traue (Editor)
01.08.2015 → 01.04.2017Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work › Editor of series › Research
Mute Books (Publisher)
Clemens Apprich (Editor)
01.12.2013 → 01.12.2014Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work › Editor of series › Research
Springer (Publisher)
Laura Lambert (Editor)
2022 → …Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work › Editor of series › Research
University of Minnesota Press (Publisher)
Timon Beyes (Editorial Board), Wendy Chun (Editorial Board), Götz Bachmann (Editorial Board) & Mercedes-Sabine Bunz (Editorial Board)
2018 → …Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work › Editor of series › Research