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Institute
Structure of the Handbook
(2011)
Abstract
The distinction between the constructive principles of combining and composing is discussed in terms of works of art, nature, and technology. How is the work that emerges from these different principles ultimately constituted and perceived as a definable entity and how is this important for the philosophy of technology? In contrast to composition, combining is presented as a strategy to give more importance to the processual, to the various spatial and temporal couplings and decoupling of the components of a work, to their relationship to their surroundings and also to the relatedness of the observer to the work. Gardenworks can stand for principles of combination as well as principles of composition. They are nature-culture hybrid forms, examples are discussed referring to 17th and 18th-century pleasure gardens. The emphasis on the principle of combination in the case of the English landscape garden ultimately produced a model for a sociotechnical handling with nature-culture constellations based on a policy of democratic principles. This combinational play in the garden can also be seen as a suitable heuristic for dealing with the comprehensive transformation processes occurring in the Anthropocene and for practicing corresponding forms of action.
Ausgehend von meiner Expertise in Technikphilosophie und Ökologie beschäftige ich mich mit der Beobachtung und Beschreibung der Genese und Transformation von Objekten und Prozessen in einer technisierten Umwelt. Die Objekte können im wissenschaftlichen Kontext entstanden sein und für die Alltagspraxis relevant werden, die Prozesse epistemischer, technischer oder sozioökologischer Art sein.
Mit der technisierten Umwelt sind in meiner Forschung Beziehungsgefüge von Natur, Technik und Mensch gemeint. Solche Beziehungsgefüge bieten sich an als produktiver Denk- und Aktionsraum, in dem Fragen nach der Entstehung von Entitäten aus Beziehungen und von Beziehungen aus Entitäten verfolgt werden. Sind die Objekte einfach da und gehen Relationen ein oder sind die Relationen vorrangig? Wie ist ein Smartphone oder eine Zuchtpflanze dann zu beschreiben, wie die Konstituierung, Durchdringung und Gestaltung des Untersuchungs-gegenstands zu verstehen? Damit schließen wir an Fragen an, wie sie im Forschungsbereich des sogenannten neuen Materialismus gestellt werden.
Im Gegensatz zum Homo faber schlägt sich der Homo hortensis nicht auf die Seite der technischen Hervorbringung. Er ist angewiesen auf den Umgang mit inhomogenen, ‚unreinen‘ Ensembles und kann so im Zeitalter des Anthropozän ein interessantes Handlungsangebot machen. Der Umgang mit der Verschränkung von Natürlichem und Artifiziellem, von Handwerk, Technik und Wissenschaft ist der gärtnerischen Praxis inhärent und dies schon seit Jahrhunderten. Der Homo hortensis ist ein genuin technowissenschaftlicher Mensch, dem der Garten ein technologisches
Produkt von handwerklich und wissenschaftlich ko-produziertem Wissen ist, das immer wieder neu in der Auseinandersetzung mit der vom Garten hervorgebrachten Ordnung ausgehandelt wird. Der Garten nötigt zur Situiertheit, fordert als Gegenüber dem Gärtner permanent eine Positionierung in seinem gärtnerischen Handeln ab. Darin unterscheidet sich der Homo hortensis von anderen Formen des gärtnerischen
Managements etwa im Geoengineering, in der industriellen Landwirtschaft, auch vieler Nachhaltigkeitsindustrien. Der Homo hortensis ist eine Fortschreibung des Arendt’schen Zoon politicon, gestaltend muss er die Grenzen seines intervenierenden Handelns permanent verhandeln mit einem Gegenüber, das ihm eine Ordnung
setzt.
An der Schwelle zum 20. Jahrhundert war die wissenschaftliche Ökologie noch so gut wie gar nicht präsent, das Ökosystem und auch der Begriff ‚Umwelt‘ als Fachbegriffe noch nicht in der Welt und schon gar nicht in der Bedeutung eines ‚Umweltproblems‘. Das ökologische Denken nahm also im Laufe des 20. Jahrhunderts enorm an Fahrt auf, und es wurde dabei befeuert durch kosmologische Denkfiguren, wie sie insbesondere im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert verbreitet waren. Argumentieren möchte ich, dass diese Kosmos-Imaginationen als relationale Gefüge konstituierend für die ökologische Theoriebildung wurden und es bis heute geblieben sind. Die ökologische Einbildungskraft lässt sich in all jenen Zwischenräumen ausmachen, die durch Projekte auf dem Weg der epistemischen Reinigungsarbeit von kulturellen und literarischen Imaginationen hin zu einer wissenschaftlichen Ökologie überhaupt erst entstanden.
Ecotechnology
(2022)
Ecotechnology is both broad and widespread, yet it has never been given a universally shared definition; this remains the case even in the early 21st century. Given that it is used in the natural, engineering, and social sciences, as well as in design studies, in the philosophy and history of technology and in science policy, perhaps this is not surprising. Indeed, it is virtually impossible to come up with an unambiguous definition for ecotechnology: It should be understood rather as an umbrella term that facilitates connections among different scientific fields and science policy and, in so doing, offers a robust trading zone of ideas and concepts. The term is part of a cultural and sociopolitical framework and, as such, wields explanatory power. Ecotechnology approaches argue for the design of ensembles that embed human action within an ecologically functional environment and mediating this relationship by technological means. Related terms, such as ecotechnics, ecotechniques, ecotechnologies, and eco-technology, are used similarly.
In the 1970s, “ecotechnology,” along with other terms, gave a voice to an unease and a concern with sociotechnical transformations. This eventually gave rise to the first global environmental movement expressing a comprehensive eco-cultural critique of society-environment relations. Ecotechnology was part of the language used by activists, as well as by social theorists and natural scientists working in the transdisciplinary field of applied ecology. The concept of ecotechnology helped to both establish and “smooth over” environmental matters of concern in the worlds of economics, science, and policymaking. The process of deliberation about a green modernity is still ongoing and characterizes the search for a constructive intermediation between artificial and natural systems following environmentally benign design principles.
During the 1980s, disciplinary endeavors flourished in the global academic world, lending ecotechnology more and more visibility. Some of these endeavors, such as restoration ecology and ecological engineering, were rooted in the engineering sciences, but mobilized quite different traditions, namely population biology and systems biology. To date, ecotechnology has been replaced by and large by other terms in applied ecology. Another strand of work resulted in the discipline of social ecology, which developed different focal points, most notably critical political economy and a concern with nature-culture issues in the context of cultural ecology. Finally, more recently, ecotechnology has been discussed in several branches of philosophy that offer different narratives about the epistemic and ontological transformations triggered by an “ecologization” of societies and a theoretical turn toward relationality.
The papers by Marco Tamborini „Philosophy of Biorobotics: Translating and Composing Biohybrid Forms“ and Astrid Schwarz „Composing and Combining: Opposing Constructive Principles?“ outline different positions on mimesis and composition as the fundamental practices of homo faber. A critical commentary seeks to highlight their differences. Tamborini specifies homo faber as homo translator who moves between different media of presentation and expression. Reproduction in another medium entails a back and forth which defines the work of the translator: a novel is reproduced by a film, the movement of a salamander is reproduced by a machine, an architectural design is reproduced by a physical building. Schwarz promotes homo hortensis who practices gardening, widely understood, in different ways – by composing and imposing a plan, or by combining and incorporating the dynamics of physical and biological processes. She foregrounds a creative and constructive act which is profoundly mundane in that it assimilates the world into the works of technology and art. Engineers, designers, architects, and planners are gardeners of sorts in that they are world-makers, tending to works and worlds. This resonates, of course, with ideas of the anthropocene and the epochal role of humans in planetary affairs. – The authors then respond constructively to the critical commentary, seeking common ground among the three positions.
新冠与身体环境:生态技术的探究
(2021)
With the thesis «Without a frame there is no landscape» I suggest to draw attention to the praxis of a relationship to nature that comes into play when we look at a part of nature as landscape. It is discussed why it should be ascribed neither completely to the realm of a concept which alone constitutes landscape nor to a completely concept-free mode of acting and seeing. Instead, the framing of landscape must be linked to a quite particular praxis: boundaries must be drawn, details defined, materials selected and formed – paper, wood, plants, paving. The frame theory suggests three forms of landscape all being «really constructed». The practical significance of framing is discussed using the example of Kant’s landscaped garden, Humboldt’s landscape, and Greenaway’s cinematic garden drawings. It is shown that, for the time being at least, we will not be able to escape the mode of framed landscape.
"Wrap-up"
(2016)
International Workshop "Transmedia Matters: Researching Electronic Waste" organized by the research project „Times of
Critical Media Lab, Institut für Experimentelle Design- und
Medienkulturen HGK FHNW Basel, November 3.-4., 2016
"Wrap-Up Session: Overall Commentary“ at the International Workshop "Maps and Apps: Mobile media and the reconfigurations of knowledge“, University of Marburg November, 10.-11.2016
Experiments in Practice
(2014)
Ikonische Ökologie
(2011)
Probing technoscience
(2011)
Competing terms
(2011)
Eros and nano
(2010)
Georges Canguilhem
(2009)
Lange, Jörg: Die Dreisam - Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft. Freiburg : Lavori-Verl., 2007
(2009)
Grüne Nanotechnologie?
(2008)
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling: Einleitung zu dem Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie
(2005)
George Evelyn Hutchinson
(2001)
Gestaltsehen in der Ökologie
(1999)
Hydrocarinae
(1998)