Florian Sprenger
Biographic Data
| ID | 3693146 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Florian Sprenger |
| GIVEN NAMES | Florian |
| FAMILY NAME | Sprenger |
| SIGNATURE | SPRENGER F |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9274-1129 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 11 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Learning by Crashing
This text explores how the introduction of (semi)autonomous cars fundamentally transforms traffic accidents. Using examples of recent crashes, the article examines how edge cases, accidents, and machine learning are intertwined and produce “infrastructural violence.” Following the example of the suspension of Cruise in 2023, the text investigates edge cases, which may not coincide with actual collisions but necessarily raise their probability, be…
Sensor-algorithmic Virtuality
To understand how robots, such as self-driving cars, drones, or rovers, generate spaces of interaction, it is important to move away from the idea that they simply represent the world through their sensors and then decide upon an appropriate action to reach a predefined goal. The question is how they generate their own worlds in the first place. This article reassesses the concept of virtuality as an analytical tool to describe the world-making c…
Surrounding and Surrounded
At this historical moment, few terms are as charged and powerful as the omnipresent term environment. It has become a strategic tool for politics and theories alike, crossed the borders of the disciplines of biology and ecology, and left the manifold field of environmentalism. This article explores the first steps on this path of expansion, in which the term becomes an argumentative resource and achieves a plausibility that transforms it into a u…
Specters of Causality
Electricity is invisible, only its effects can be perceived, but they should not be mistaken for electricity itself, because electricity designates a condition of matter. The article describes how in eighteenth century electricity research, the aesthetics of electricity – the forms in which it appears and its representations – are haunted by the anaesthetics of its object. It investigates one specific challenge in the early history of electricity…
Neben-, Mit-, In- und Durcheinander
Im Rahmen einer Wissenschafts- und Wissensgeschichte der Symbiose beschreibt der Text mit Anton de Bary (um 1880) und Lynn Margulis (um 1970) zwei zentrale Etappen der Erforschung biologischer Symbiosen. Er fragt danach, wie mit den in diesen Ansätzen veranschlagten Umgebungsrelationen Fragen der Autonomie und der Determination verhandelt werden. Diese Fragen bilden eine Schnittfläche zwischen soziologischem und biologischem Wissen, an der Modell…
Methoden der Medienwissenschaft. Die unstete Methodik der Medienwissenschaft
Environments of Experimentation and Epistemologies of Surroundings
May 01 2019 Environments of Experimentation and Epistemologies of Surroundings: John Scott Haldane's Physiology and Biopolitics of the Living Florian Sprenger, Florian Sprenger Florian Sprenger is Professor for Media and Cultural Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt. He is currently finishing a book project, “Epistemologies of Surroundings: On the History, Ecology, and Biopolitics of Artificial Environments.” His research covers topics such as …
The Environment
Reviewed by: The Environment: A History of the Idea by Paul Warde, Libby Robin, and Sverker Sörlin Florian Sprenger (bio) The Environment: A History of the Idea. By Paul Warde, Libby Robin, and Sverker Sörlin. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018. Pp. 244. Hardcover $29.95. Without doubt the term "environment" is one of the central concepts of Western self-understanding. It allows one to negotiate the relationships between man and natu…
Milieu
Fragen, die das Verhältnis vom Lokalen zum Globalen zum Inhalt haben, die sich mit den Beziehungen des Subjekts zu seiner Umwelt beschäftigen und daher an einer Vertiefung von Umgebungswissen interessiert sind, können als Kernthemen moderner Wissenschaft gelten. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei zumeist ein Begriff, der historisch an prominenter Stelle zwischen diesen Themen und Problemstellungen vermittelt hat: Milieu. Milieu – Umgebungen des Lebendige…
Issue 29 Introduction
Ubiquitous computing and the Internet of Things are often referred to as prime examples not only of new modes of computing, but of a new paradigm of mediation itself.If Lewis Mumford could already ascribe key characteristics of media -such as storage and transmission -to the city, so the city could in itself be understood as a medium (see Kittler, 1996), then nonetheless something changes considerably once 'the city itself is turning into a const…
The metaphysics of media
Continuing longstanding debates in German Media Theory, the article explores the genealogy of the concepts of media and communication and their physico-philosophical background. By referring to Descartes’ physics, it shows how concepts of action at a distance were part of the formation of the modern idea of physical mediation, while at the same time leading to phantasms of immediacy, which means the cancellation of mediation. In his Dioptrics, De…
The Politics of Micro-Decisions
Be it in the case of opening a website, sending an email, or high-frequency trading, bits and bytes of information have to cross numerous nodes at which micro-decisions are made. These decisions concern the most efficient path through the network, the processing speed, or the priority of incoming data packets. Despite their multifaceted nature, micro-decisions are a dimension of control and surveillance in the twenty-first century that has receiv…
Surrounding and Surrounded
At this historical moment, few terms are as charged and powerful as the omnipresent term environment. It has become a strategic tool for politics and theories alike, crossed the borders of the disciplines of biology and ecology, and left the manifold field of environmentalism. This article explores the first steps on this path of expansion, in which the term becomes an argumentative resource and achieves a plausibility that transforms it into a u…
Environments of Experimentation and Epistemologies of Surroundings
May 01 2019 Environments of Experimentation and Epistemologies of Surroundings: John Scott Haldane's Physiology and Biopolitics of the Living Florian Sprenger, Florian Sprenger Florian Sprenger is Professor for Media and Cultural Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt. He is currently finishing a book project, “Epistemologies of Surroundings: On the History, Ecology, and Biopolitics of Artificial Environments.” His research covers topics such as …
The Politics of Micro-Decisions
Be it in the case of opening a website, sending an email, or high-frequency trading, bits and bytes of information have to cross numerous nodes at which micro-decisions are made. These decisions concern the most efficient path through the network, the processing speed, or the priority of incoming data packets. Despite their multifaceted nature, micro-decisions are a dimension of control and surveillance in the twenty-first century that has receiv…
The metaphysics of media
Continuing longstanding debates in German Media Theory, the article explores the genealogy of the concepts of media and communication and their physico-philosophical background. By referring to Descartes’ physics, it shows how concepts of action at a distance were part of the formation of the modern idea of physical mediation, while at the same time leading to phantasms of immediacy, which means the cancellation of mediation. In his Dioptrics, De…
Milieu
Fragen, die das Verhältnis vom Lokalen zum Globalen zum Inhalt haben, die sich mit den Beziehungen des Subjekts zu seiner Umwelt beschäftigen und daher an einer Vertiefung von Umgebungswissen interessiert sind, können als Kernthemen moderner Wissenschaft gelten. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei zumeist ein Begriff, der historisch an prominenter Stelle zwischen diesen Themen und Problemstellungen vermittelt hat: Milieu. Milieu – Umgebungen des Lebendige…
Issue 29 Introduction
Ubiquitous computing and the Internet of Things are often referred to as prime examples not only of new modes of computing, but of a new paradigm of mediation itself.If Lewis Mumford could already ascribe key characteristics of media -such as storage and transmission -to the city, so the city could in itself be understood as a medium (see Kittler, 1996), then nonetheless something changes considerably once 'the city itself is turning into a const…
Methoden der Medienwissenschaft. Die unstete Methodik der Medienwissenschaft
Environments of Experimentation and Epistemologies of Surroundings
May 01 2019 Environments of Experimentation and Epistemologies of Surroundings: John Scott Haldane's Physiology and Biopolitics of the Living Florian Sprenger, Florian Sprenger Florian Sprenger is Professor for Media and Cultural Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt. He is currently finishing a book project, “Epistemologies of Surroundings: On the History, Ecology, and Biopolitics of Artificial Environments.” His research covers topics such as …
The Environment
Reviewed by: The Environment: A History of the Idea by Paul Warde, Libby Robin, and Sverker Sörlin Florian Sprenger (bio) The Environment: A History of the Idea. By Paul Warde, Libby Robin, and Sverker Sörlin. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018. Pp. 244. Hardcover $29.95. Without doubt the term "environment" is one of the central concepts of Western self-understanding. It allows one to negotiate the relationships between man and natu…
Neben-, Mit-, In- und Durcheinander
Im Rahmen einer Wissenschafts- und Wissensgeschichte der Symbiose beschreibt der Text mit Anton de Bary (um 1880) und Lynn Margulis (um 1970) zwei zentrale Etappen der Erforschung biologischer Symbiosen. Er fragt danach, wie mit den in diesen Ansätzen veranschlagten Umgebungsrelationen Fragen der Autonomie und der Determination verhandelt werden. Diese Fragen bilden eine Schnittfläche zwischen soziologischem und biologischem Wissen, an der Modell…
Specters of Causality
Electricity is invisible, only its effects can be perceived, but they should not be mistaken for electricity itself, because electricity designates a condition of matter. The article describes how in eighteenth century electricity research, the aesthetics of electricity – the forms in which it appears and its representations – are haunted by the anaesthetics of its object. It investigates one specific challenge in the early history of electricity…
Sensor-algorithmic Virtuality
To understand how robots, such as self-driving cars, drones, or rovers, generate spaces of interaction, it is important to move away from the idea that they simply represent the world through their sensors and then decide upon an appropriate action to reach a predefined goal. The question is how they generate their own worlds in the first place. This article reassesses the concept of virtuality as an analytical tool to describe the world-making c…
Surrounding and Surrounded
At this historical moment, few terms are as charged and powerful as the omnipresent term environment. It has become a strategic tool for politics and theories alike, crossed the borders of the disciplines of biology and ecology, and left the manifold field of environmentalism. This article explores the first steps on this path of expansion, in which the term becomes an argumentative resource and achieves a plausibility that transforms it into a u…
Learning by Crashing
This text explores how the introduction of (semi)autonomous cars fundamentally transforms traffic accidents. Using examples of recent crashes, the article examines how edge cases, accidents, and machine learning are intertwined and produce “infrastructural violence.” Following the example of the suspension of Cruise in 2023, the text investigates edge cases, which may not coincide with actual collisions but necessarily raise their probability, be…
Philosophy (7 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Art (3 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Epistemology (3 works) · Political science (3 works) · Aesthetics (2 works) · Artificial Intelligence (2 works) · Ecology, Conservation, and Geographical Studies (2 works) · Environmental ethics (2 works)