Prof. Dr. Nathan Schneider (University of Colorado Boulder) and Dr. Johannes Bennke (Filmuniversity Babelsberg Konrad Wolf): Workshop on Protocols and Intellectual Landscapes of AI

• 30.09.2025
• 10:00 Clock
• Besprechungsraum • Linzer Str. 4

Abstract

The workshop aims to explore the concepts of “protocological governance” and “intellectual landscape”, and their interconnectedness. “Protocological governance” seeks to rehabilitate the concept of protocol in media theory, recognizing it as an ambivalent form of governance beyond its role as a medium of control. The idea is to understand how protocols can themselves be sources of sovereignty through their social entanglements. Conversely, “intellectual landscape” focuses on understanding the orienting discourses and imaginations that shape technological developments and experimentation in AI (and other technologies). The goal is to expand the perspective of individual imaginations, visions, and imaginaries to a viewpoint that focuses more strongly on dynamics and interrelationships. Ultimately, both concepts aim to foster broader approach to current developments in communicative AI, which we plan to discuss further.

Bio: Prof. Dr. Nathan Schneider

Nathan Schneider is an associate professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he leads the Media Economies Design Lab and the MA program in Media and Public Engagement. He is the author of four books, most recently Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life, published by University of California Press in 2024, and Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition that Is Shaping the Next Economy, published by Bold Type Books in 2018. He edited Vitalik Buterin’s book Proof of Stake: The Making of Ethereum and the Philosophy of Blockchains and co-edited Beautiful Solutions: A Toolbox for Liberation and Ours to Hack and to Own: The Rise of Platform Cooperativism, a New Vision for the Future of Work and a Fairer Internet. Recent scholarship has been published in New Media & Society, Feminist Media Studies, the Georgetown Law Technology Review, and Media, Culture & Society, among other journals. He has also reported for publications including Harper’s, The Nation, The New Republic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and others, along with regular columns for America, a national Catholic magazine. He has lectured at universities including Columbia, Fordham, Harvard, MIT, NYU, the University of Bologna, and Yale. He serves on the boards of Metagov, Start.coop, and Waging Nonviolence. Follow his work on social media at @ntnsndr or at his website, nathanschneider.info.

Bio: Dr. Johannes Bennke

Dr. Johannes Bennke is head of the Media Lab for Digital Sovereignty at Filmuniversity Babelsberg Konrad Wolf. Before that he was a post-doc fellow at the Program for Hermeneutics & Cultural Studies at Bar-Ilan University and a post-doc fellow of the Minerva Foundation of the Max-Planck-Society at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research focuses on media philosophy, the aesthetics of digital audiovisual cultures, and ethics of media practices, in particular forms of governance of archives in Web3. In his current habilitation project “The Art of Digital Sovereignty” he analyzes forms of digital sovereignty in art and media and develops a media-historical and media-theoretical approach to protocols for governing digital cultural heritage in Web3. He received his doctorate from the Bauhaus-University Weimar, Germany with a thesis on media philosophy and aesthetics according to Emmanuel Levinas.  Since 2022 together with Markus Rautzenberg and Mirjam Schaub, he is co-speaker of the Media Philosophy Working Group of the Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft (GfM). Recent publications: Co-editor of navigationen, “Media Cultures of Value: Economy, Politics, and Art in Web3” (with M. Schaub; 2025), co-editor of Levinas und die Künste (with D. Mersch; transcript 2024); guest editor of communication +1, “Media of Verification” (2023); Obliteration. Für eine partikulare Medienphilosophie nach Emmanuel Levinas (transcript, 2023) and International Yearbook of Media Philosophy. Mediality/Theology/Religion (with V. Brower; de Gruyter, 2021).

There is no entry fee for this lecture, however to participate please register under christina.schober@vw.uni-bremen.de