Cultural techniques

From the German term Kulturtechniken, which may be rendered in English as cultural techniques, cultural technologies, cultural technics, or culturing techniques.

Kulturtechniken is a concept linked to developments in Germanophone media theory in the previous decade (2000s). Emerging in the late 19th century in the domain of agricultural engineering, the notion of cultural techniques was later employed to describe the interactions between humans and media, and, most recently, to "account for basic operations and differentiations that give rise to an array of conceptual and ontological entities which are said to constitute culture." As Geoffrey Winthrop-Young further argues in a thematic issue of Theory, Culture & Society, "cultural techniques [..] transcend the confines of literary studies, media theory and cultural studies and enter the domain of philosophy and anthropology." (2013: 5)

The concept is often explained through a now canonical passage by cultural historian Thomas Macho:

"Cultural techniques – such as writing, reading, painting, counting, making music – are always older than the concepts that are generated from them. People wrote long before they conceptualized writing or alphabets; millennia passed before pictures and statues gave rise to the concept of the image; and until today, people sing or make music without knowing anything about tones or musical notation systems. Counting, too, is older than the notion of numbers. To be sure, most cultures counted or performed certain mathematical operations; but they did not necessarily derive from this a concept of number." (Macho, 2003: 179)

The introduction of the concept into media theory is intertwined with the work of Friedrich Kittler and the Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik, an interdisciplinary academic institute founded in 1999 by eight professors from Berlin universities. The following years saw numerous, largely German publications, notably in the special book series of major humanities publishers (Wilhelm Fink, diaphanes). An English volume on cultural techniques is forthcoming from Fordham University Press.

Key terms

colere, culture, Cultur, Kultur, techné, technique, Technik

Institutes

• Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik (HZK) at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Founded in 1999.
• Internationales Kolleg für Kulturtechnikforschung und Medienphilosophie at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. Founded in 2008 by Lorenz Engell and Bernhard Siegert. [1]

Events

• Theatrum naturae et artis exhibition, Martin Gropius-Bau, Berlin, 2000-2001.

Theorists

• Horst Bredekamp
• Lorenz Engell
• Christian Kassung
• Friedrich Kittler
• Sybille Krämer
• Markus Krajewski
• Thomas Macho
• Gloria Meynen
• Erhard Schüttpelz
• Bernhard Siegert
• Cornelia Vismann
• Geoffrey Winthrop-Young

Literature

Book series

Jochen Brüning, Eberhard Knobloch (eds.), Die mathematischen Wurzeln der Kultur, 2005. View online.

Wolfgang Ernst, Friedrich Kittler (eds.), Die Geburt des Vokalalphabets aus dem Geist der Poesie, 2006. View online.

Kulturtechnik (Fink) [2]

• Sybille Krämer, Horst Bredekamp (eds.), Bild, Schrift, Zahl, Munich: Fink, 2003. Second edition, 2009. (in German) [3]
  • Sybille Krämer, Horst Bredekamp, "Kultur, Technik, Kulturtechnik: Wider die Diskursivierung der Kultur", pp 11–22.
  • Thomas Macho, "Zeit und Zahl: Kalender- und Zeitrechnung als Kulturtechniken", pp 179–192.
• Gernot Grube, Werner Kogge, Sybille Krämer (eds.), Schrift: Kulturtechnik zwischen Auge, Hand und Maschine, Munich: Fink, 2005, 472 pp. ISBN 978-3-7705-4190-4. (in German) [4] [5]
• Jochen Brüning, Eberhard Knobloch (eds.), Die mathematischen Wurzeln der Kultur: Mathematische Innovationen und ihre kulturellen Folgen, Munich: Fink, 2005, 193 pp. ISBN 978-3-7705-4016-7. (in German) [6]
• Wolfgang Ernst, Friedrich Kittler (eds.), Die Geburt des Vokalalphabets aus dem Geist der Poesie: Schrift, Zahl und Ton im Medienverbund, Munich: Fink, 2006, 314 pp. ISBN 978-3-7705-4267-3. (in German) [7]
• Horst Bredekamp, Pablo Schneider (eds.), Visuelle Argumentationen: Die Mysterien der Repräsentation und die Berechenbarkeit der Welt, Munich: Fink, 2006, 266 pp. (in German) [8]
• Friedrich Kittler, Ana Ofak (eds.), Medien vor den Medien, Munich: Fink, 2007, 282 pp. ISBN 978-3-7705-4284-0. (in German) [9]
• Ana Ofak, Philipp von Hilgers (eds.), Rekursionen: Von Faltungen des Wissens, Munich: Fink, 2010, 266 pp. ISBN 978-3-7705-4678-7. (in German) [10]
• Horst Bredekamp, Christiane Kruse, Pablo Schneider (eds.), Imagination und Repräsentation: Zwei Bildsphären der Frühen Neuzeit, Munich: Fink, 2010, 362 pp. ISBN 978-3-7705-4591-9. (in German) [11]
• Thomas Macho, Christian Kassung, Kulturtechniken der Synchronisation, Munich: Fink, 2013, 413 pp. ISBN 978-3-7705-4808-8. (in German) [12]

Daidalia - Studien und Materialien zur Geschichte und Theorie der Kulturtechniken (diaphanes) [13]

Edited by Bernhard Siegert and Daniel Gethmann.

• Hubert Damisch, Der Ursprung der Perspektive: Perspektive als Kulturtechnik und als Denkmodell, Zürich: diaphanes, 2010, 448 pp. ISBN 978-3-03734-087-5. (in German). Translated from the French by Heinz Jatho. [14]
• Nina Wiedemeyer, Buchfalten: Material, Technik, Gefüge der Künstlerbücher, 2013 (forthcoming), 256 pp. ISBN 978-3-03734-380-7. (in German) [15]

More books

• Jürgen Barkhoff, Hartmut Böhme, Jeanne Riou (eds.), Netzwerke: Eine Kulturtechnik der Moderne, Cologne/Weimar/Vienna: Böhlau, 2004. (in German) [16]
• Carolin Meister, Legenden. Zur Sichtbarkeit der Bildbeschreibung, Zürich: diaphanes, 2005, 224 pp. ISBN 978-3-935300-96-4. (in German) [17]
• Sebastian Gießmann, Netze und Netzwerke. Archäologie einer Kulturtechnik, 1740-1840, Transcript, 2006, 114 pp. ISBN 978-3899424386. (in German)
• Bernhard Siegert, Tobias Nanz (eds.), EX MACHINA. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kulturtechniken, Weimar, 2006. (in German)
• Daniel Gethmann, Susanne Hauser (eds.), Kulturtechnik Entwerfen: Praktiken, Konzepte und Medien in Architektur und Design Science, Bielefeld, 2009. (in German) Introduction.
• Ulrike Bergermann et al (eds.), Das Planetarische: Kultur-Technik-Medien im postglobalen Zeitalter, Munich: Fink, 2010. (in German)
• Tobias Nanz, Grenzverkehr. Eine Mediengeschichte der Diplomatie, Zürich: diaphanes, 2010, 224 pp. ISBN 978-3-03734-105-6. (in German) [18]
• Bernhard Siegert, Cultural Techniques: Grids, Filters, Doors, and Other Articulations of the Real, trans. Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, Fordham University Press, 2014, 288 pp. [19]

Journal issues and Special sections

Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturforschung 1: Kulturtechnik, 2010. In German. Download.

Theory, Culture & Society 30(6), Special Issue: Cultural Techniques, 2013. Download.

• Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturforschung 1, Schwerpunkt Kulturtechnik, eds. Lorenz Engell and Bernhard Siegert, Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 2010. (in German) [20]
  • Lorenz Engell, Bernhard Siegert, "Editorial", pp 5–9.
  • Erhard Schüttpelz, "Körpertechniken", pp 101–120.
  • Harun Maye, "Was ist eine Kulturtechnik?", pp 121–136.
  • Wolfgang Schäffner, "Elemente architektonischer Medien", pp 137–149.
  • Bernhard Siegert, "Türen. Zur Materialität des Symbolischen", pp 151–170.
    • "Doors: On the Materiality of the Symbolic", trans. John Durham Peters, Grey Room 47 (Spring 2012), pp 6–23. [21]
  • Cornelia Vismann, "Kulturtechniken und Souveränität", pp 171–181.
  • Manfred Schneider, "Die Hand und die Technik. Eine Fundamentalcheirologie", pp 183–200.
  • Susan Leigh Star, "Residual Categories: Silence, Absence and Being an Other", pp 201–219.

• Theory, Culture & Society 30(6), Special Issue: Cultural Techniques, eds. Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, Ilinca Irascu and Jussi Parikka, Nov 2013.
  • Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, Cultural Techniques: Preliminary Remarks", pp 3-19.
  • Sybille Krämer, Horst Bredekamp, "Culture, Technology, Cultural Techniques: Moving beyond Text", pp 20-29. Orig. in German, 2003 (see above).
  • Thomas Macho, "Second-Order Animals: Cultural Techniques of Identity and Identification", pp 30-47. Orig. in German, 2008 (see below).
  • Bernhard Siegert, Cultural Techniques, or the End of the Intellectual Postwar Era in German Media Theory", pp 48-65.
  • Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan, After Kittler: On the Cultural Techniques of Recent German Media Theory", pp 66-82.
  • Cornelia Vismann, "Cultural Techniques and Sovereignty", pp 83-93. Orig. in German, 2010 (see above).
  • Markus Krajewski, "The Power of Small Gestures: On the Cultural Technique of Service", pp 94-109.
  • Sebastian Vehlken, "Zootechnologies: Swarming as a Cultural Technique", pp 110-131.
  • Wolfgang Ernst, "From Media History to Zeitkritik", pp 132-146.
  • Jussi Parikka, "Afterword: Cultural Techniques and Media Studies", pp 147-159.
  • Liam Cole Young, "Files, Lists, and the Material History of the Law", pp 160-172. Review of Cornelia Vismann's Files: Law and Media Technology.

Book chapters, Papers, Articles, Interviews

• Bernhard Siegert, "Kakographie oder Kommunikation? Verhältnisse zwischen Kulturtechnik und Parasitentum", Archiv für Mediengeschichte, Nr. 1, 2001. (in German)
• Bernhard Siegert, "(Nicht) Am Ort. Zum Raster als Kulturtechnik", Thesis 49, 2003, No. 3. (in German)
• Wolfgang Ernst, "Von der Mediengeschichte zur Zeitkritik", in: Engell, Siegert, Vogl (eds.), Kulturgeschichte als Mediengeschichte (oder vice versa?), Weimar: Universitatsverlag, 2006, pp 23–32. (in German)
• Sybille Krämer, "The Cultural Techniques of Time Axis Manipulation: On Friedrich Kittler’s Conception of Media", Theory Culture Society, Vol. 23 (2006), No. 7-8, Special Section on Friedrich Kittler, pp 93-109. [22]
• Erhard Schüttpelz, "Die medienanthropologische Kehre der Kulturtechniken", in: Engell, Siegert, Vogl (eds.), Archiv für Mediengeschichte No. 6: Kulturgeschichte als Mediengeschichte (oder vice versa)?, Weimar: Universitatsverlag, 2006, pp 87–110. (in German)
• "Cacography or Communication? Cultural Techniques in German Media Studies", Grey Room, Fall 2007, No. 29, pp 26-47.
• Bernhard Siegert, "parlêtres. Zur kulturtechnischen Gabe und Barre der anthropologischen Differenz", in: Anne von der Heiden, Joseph Vogl (eds.), Politische Zoologie, Berlin-Zürich: diaphanes, 2007, pp 23-37. (in German) [23]
• Bernhard Siegert, "Cultural Techniques of Ruling Spaces – Raumbeherrschung", in: Architecture of the Medial Spaces: Bauhaus Lectures Dessau 16-17 May 06 Dessau, eds. Joachim Krausse and Stephan Pinkau, Dessau, 2008, pp 16-26.
• Thomas Macho, "Tiere zweiter Ordnung. Kulturtechniken der Identitat", in: Baecker, Kettner, Rustemeyer (eds.), Über Kultur. Theorie und Praxis der Kulturreflexion. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2008, pp 99–117. (in German) [24]
• Gloria Meynen, "Die Insel als Kulturtechnik (Ein Entwurf)", Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft 2 (1/2010), Zürich: diaphanes, pp 79–91. (in German)
• Tara Rodgers, Jonathan Sterne, "Poetik der Signalverarbeitung", Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft 5 (2/2011), Zürich: diaphanes, pp 122–137. (in German)
• Bernhard Siegert, "Kulturtechnik", in: Harun Maye, Leander Scholz (eds.), Einführung in die Kulturwissenschaft Munich, 2011, pp 95-118. (in German)
• Bernhard Siegert, "The map is the territory", Radical Philosophy, "Dossier: What is German Media Philosophy?", No. 169 (Sep/Oct 2011), pp 13-16. Lecture (audio), 20 min, 2011.
• Melle Kromhout, Peter McMurray, "More Things in Theory Than Heaven and Earth are Dreaming Of. A conversation with Geoffrey Winthrop-Young", Digital Passage blog, 22 Dec 2014.
• Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, "Kittler’s Siren Recursions", in Kittler Now: Current Perspectives in Kittler Studies, eds. Stephen Sale and Laura Salisbury, Polity Press, 2015.
• Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, "The Kultur of Cultural Techniques: Conceptual Inertia and the Parasitic Materialities of Ontologization", Cultural Politics 10:3 (2015).

Primary references

Kulturtechnik as agricultural engineering

• Friedrich Wilhelm Dunckelberg, 2 Vols., Encyclopädie und Methodologie der Culturtechnik. Zum Gebrauch an landwirthschaftlichen und technischen Lehranstalten, Braunschweig: Bieweg, 1883. (in German)
• Emil Perels, Abhandlungen über Kulturtechnik, Jena, 1889. (in German)
• Christian August Vogler, Grundlehren der Kulturtechnik, 2 Vols., Berlin, 1898. (in German). The book counted chemistry, mineralogy, botany, mechanics, hydraulics, economics, water management, manufacturing, and law among the constituents of Kulturtechnik.

Philosophy of technology and Media anthropology

• Marcell Mauss, "Les techniques du corps", Journal de Psychologie 32:3-4 (1935), pp 271-293; repr. in Mauss, Sociologie et anthropologie, 1950; 1973. Paper presented at the Société de Psychologie, 17 May 1934. (in French) [25] [26]
  • "Le tecniche del corpo", trans. Franco Zannino, in Teoria generale della magia e altri saggi, Turin: Einaudi, 1965. (in Italian)
  • "Técnicas y movimientos corporales", trans. Teresa Rubio de Martín-Retortillo, in Mauss, Sociología y antropología, Madrid: Tecnos, 1971, pp 337-356. (in Spanish)
  • "Techniques of the Body", trans. Ben Brewster, Economy and Society 2:1 (1973), pp 70-88; repr. in Incorporations, eds. Jonathan Crary and Sanford Kwinter, New York: Zone Books, 1992, pp 455-477.
  • "Sposoby posługiwania się ciałem", in Mauss, Socjologia i antropologia, Warsaw: PWN, 1973, pp 533-566; abridged repr. in Antropologia kultury. Zagadnienia i wybór tekstów, I, Warsaw: WUW, 2001, pp 201-211. (in Polish)
  • "Die Techniken des Körpers", in Mauss, Soziologie und Anthropologie, 2, Munich: Hanser, 1975, pp 197-220; repr., Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1989, pp 197-220. (in German)
  • "Techniki tela" [Техники тела], in Moss, Общества, Обмен, Личность, Moscow: Nauka, 1996, pp 242-263. (in Russian)
  • "As técnicas do corpo", trans. Paulo Neves, in Mauss, Sociologia e antropologia, São Paulo: Cosac & Naify, 2003, pp 399-422. (in Portuguese) [27]

• Martin Heidegger, "Die Frage nach der Technik", in Vorträge und Aufsätze, Pfullingen: Günther Neske, 1954. (in German). Reprinted as Die Frage nach der Technik, Pfullingen: Günther Neske, 1962; and in Gesamtausgabe. 4 Abteilungen: Gesamtausgabe 1. Abt. Bd. 7: Vorträge und Aufsätze, Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2000, pp 5-36 ("Das Ding" appears there on pp 165-187). In the 1962 book, the following prefatory note appears regarding the two essays, "Die Frage nach der Technik" [The Question Concerning Technology] and "Die Kehre" [The Turning]: "Under the title 'Insight into That Which Is', the author gave, on 1 December 1949, in the Club at Bremen, four lectures, which were repeated without alterations on 25-26 March 1950 at Bühlerhöhe. The titles were 'Das Ding' [The Thing], 'Das Gestell' [En­framing], 'Die Gefahr' [The Danger], 'Die Kehre' [The Turning]. The first lecture was given in an expanded version on 6 June 1950, before the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. The second lecture was given on 18 November 1955, also in an expanded version, under the title 'The Question Concerning Tech­nology' in the series entitled The Arts in the Technological Age. The present volume repeats this text unaltered. The third lecture remains still unpublished. The fourth lecture, 'The Turning', is published here for the first time according to the first unaltered version."
  • "La question de la technique", trans. André Préau, Gallimard, 1958, pp 9-48. (in French) [28]
  • "The Thing", in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter, New York: Harper & Row, 1971, pp 165-186.
  • "Spørsmålet om teknikken", in Oikos og techne, Johan Grundt Tanum, 1973. New edition: Oslo: Aschehoug, 1996. (in Norwegian)
  • "La questione della tecnica", trans. Gianni Vattimo, in Saggi e discorsi, Milan: Mursia, 1976, pp 5-27. (in Italian) [29]
    • "La cosa", pp 109-124.
  • "The Question Concerning Technology", in The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays, trans. William Lovitt, New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1977, pp 3-35.
    • "The Turning", pp 36-49.
  • "La pregunta por la técnica", trans. Salvador Mas Torres, Anales del Seminario de Metafísica 24, Madrid, 1990, pp 129-162. (in Spanish)
  • "Вопрос о технике", trans. В. В. Бибихин, in Время и бытие: Статьи и выступления, Moscow: Республика, 1993, pp 221—238, notes 420—423. (in Russian)
  • "Otázka techniky", trans. Jiří Michálek, Jana Kružíková and Ivan Chvatík, in Věda, technika a zamyšlení, Prague: Oikoymenh, 2004, pp 7-35. (in Czech)
  • "A questão da técnica", trans. Marco Aurélio Werle, Scientiae studia, São Paulo, Vol. 5, No. 3 (2007), pp 375-398. (in Portuguese)
  • Tekniikka ja käänne, trans. Vesa Jaaksi, Tampere: Eurooppalaisen filosofian seura, 2007. (in Finnish) [30]

Kulturtechnik in elementary pedagogy

• Angela Fritz, Alexandra Suess, Lesen: Die Bedeutung der Kulturtechnik Lesen für den Gesellschaftlichen Kommunikationsprozess, Konstanz: Universitats Verlag, 1986, 180 pp. ISBN 387940299X. (in German)

See also

• Friedrich Kittler
• Media archaeology
• Philosophy of technology

Links

• Lucas Introna, "A Fundamental Critique of the Technological Attitude", part of "Phenomenological Approaches to Ethics and Information Technology", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Cultural techniques at German Wikipedia

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