A research project by Siegfried Zielinski – generated in close cooperation with Eckhard Fürlus, Daniel Irrgang, Franziska Latell, David Link, Philip Tögel, Silvia Wagnermaier, and our publisher, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln (Christian Posthofen)
Since 2018 Variantology is an independent research project by Berlin based media archaeologist Siegfried Zielinski. From 2016-2018 it was hosted by the Karlsruhe University of Arts & Design (strongly supported by Daniel Irrgang), and has been developed further in various exhibitions in cooperation with the Karlsruhe Centre for Art and Media (ZKM). 2007-2016 the project was located at the Berlin Universty of Arts under the title Variantology / Archaeology of Arts & Media. Initiated by Siegfried Zielinski, from 2004 til 2006 it was established generously supported by the North-Rhine-Westfalian Ministry for Science and Research as a special research project at the Cologne Academy of Media Arts.
Right from the beginning the project Variantology / Archaeology of Arts & Media has been conceptualized as an international research project. A critical analysis and reflection of the existing heterogenous concepts of Media in different cultures of knowledge and the arts plays an important role in this project. The concept of Medium is opened for regions disciplines and ideas, which so far had been held mainly outside of the media discourse. Vice versa these disciplines open up for a knowledge culture in categories of medialities and communication. The invention of a mundial network of researchers, artists and writers focusing on Deep Time relations of arts, sciences, and technologies is a crucial part of the project. Themes and problems we are confonted with have become so complex that we cannot sit them out anymore on one Chair. So far there have been successful cooperations with researchers and artists from Australia, Austria, The Peoples Republic of China, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Columbia, Lebanon, Mexico, Russia, Slovania, Spain, Switzerland, Türkey, and the U.S.A.
Results of our research are regularly presented at international conferences, symposia, seminars, lectures, and they are published in books. So far five volumes in English language (Walther König, Cologne) and one in German (Kadmos, Berlin) have been published. The latest book by Siegfried Zielinski, Variations on Media Thinking (University of Minnesota Press, 2019) connects for the first time investigations into Variantology with the research On Genealogy of MediaThinking.
Until 2016 the project was located at the Berlin University of Arts (UdK) Institute for Time Based Media / Chair
for Media Theory/Archaology und Variantology of Arts and Media / Prof. Dr. Siegfried Zielinski
Actual contact:
Maja <majaneu@gmx.de>