Language is more than just phonetics, it is information. The literary scholar Lydia H. Lui describes how, after World War II, different scientific disciplines – from cybernetics, linguistics, and psychoanalysis to molecular biology – participated in the inscription of alphabetic written language into digital information processes, thus creating a new species, the “Freudian Robot”. To article...

Culture and media theorist Benjamin Steininger from the group Beauty of Oil explains the fusion of the coal and petrochemistry industries since the 1920s and sketches the far ranging consequences from the Second World War to the present. To article...

The year 1948 was a visionary moment in which antigenetics, ideology and the exploration of life in other worlds mutually inspired one another. The historian of biology Luis Campos casts light on the “avant-gardes” of breeding biology, on their ideas for the creation of new organisms and habitats. Is it just a question of time before visions of the future from back then become the reality? To article...

Neurons living in a Petri dish perform duets with human musicians: Australian-based artist Guy Ben-Ary had his cells extracted and grown into a culture of 100,000 living neurons. Lined with electrodes, these neurons form output via an analog synthesizer, cellF, allowing them to “jam” with human musicians. Ben-Ary talks about the blending of art and science, joint ventures, and non-human consciousness. To article...

In this interview the editors Katrin Klingan and Christoph Rosol discuss the contents of HKW’s online Technosphere Magazine. In a series of dossiers aimed at an international readership, artists, designers, and scientists explore the concept of the Technosphere, embracing the breakdown of the categorical divisions between man, technology, and nature. To article in German...