Operativity. Ontologies. Speculations. Dieter Mersch

The presentation argues alongside two pairs of oppositions: operativity/practice on the one hand and ontology/epistēmē (or epistemology) on the other. It also questions the read­ability of networks of things and the condition and validity of transhumanistic theories.

BIO/BIB — Dieter Mersch is Professor for Philosophical Aesthetic at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). He studied mathematics and philosophy at the Universities of Co­logne and Bochum and got his PhD in philosophy at the Technical University Darmstadt. From 2000 to 2003 he was Guest-professor for Philosophy of Arts and Aesthetics at the School of Arts in Kiel, from 2004 to 2013 full professor for Media Theory and Media Studies at the University of Potsdam, in 2006 Guest-professor at the University of Chicago, 2010 Fellow at the IKKM in Weimar, 2012 Fellow at the ZHdK Zurich, Switzerland, in 2013 Guest-professor at the State University Sao Paulo, Brasil. He is also Chair of the DFG Research Training Centre «Visibility and Visualisa­tion – Hybrid Forms of Pictorial Knowledge» since 2010 and Member of the Editorial Board of the Annual Book for Media Philosophy (Jahrbuch für Medienphilosophie) and the Publica­tion Series Metabasis (Trancript, Bielefeld, Germany) and DIGAREC Series, Potsdam University Press. His main areas of interests are philosophy of media, aesthetics and art theory, picture theory, semiotics, hermeneutics, poststructuralism, and theory of language and communication. He has published several books, such as Introduction to Umberto Eco (Hamburg 1993, in German: Einführung zu Umberto Eco); What shows itself: On Materiality, Presence, and Event (Munich 2002, in German: Was sich zeigt: Materialität, Präsenz, Ereignis); Event and Aura: Investigations on Aesthetics of Performativity (Frankfurt/M 2002, in German: Ereignis und Aura: Untersuchungen zu einer Ästhetik des Performativen); Introduction to Media Theory (Hamburg 2006, in German: Medientheorien zur Einführung), Post-Hermeneutics (Berlin 2010, in German: Posthermeneutik) and Ordo ab chao / Order from Noise (Berlin/Zurich 2013).