The relationship between technology and the psyche is a scandalous one. We are used to think of the psychic as something subjective, authentic, that is, something that actually comes from within us. However, this is contrasted with the technological pretension of being able to recognise, awaken, manipulate or modulate the subjective from the outside. Massive amounts of money are being spent on research into digital emotion recognition through the analysis of facial expressions, voice, movement and other (alleged) indicators. Thanks to neurotechnological inventions, it is said that mind-reading will soon be possible.

However, the fact that technology in the broadest sense has a targeted effect on psychological phenomena such as feelings, thoughts, imagination and motivation is not a new phenomenon. The practical knowledge (techné in the ancient Greek sense) of how to produce certain psychological effects has been part of the core inventory of various disciplines since antiquity, such as rhetoric, poetics and music theory, medicine and dietetics, ethics, the art of living and, last but not least, politics.

At present, we can observe an intensification of technical and technological possibilities for psychic influence that has yet to find a counterpart at the level of discursivisation. In times when phenomena such as “Artificial Emotional Intelligence” and “Affective Computing” for the recognition and simulation of affects and emotions by robots and computers in their dealings with people are exponentially growing fields of research, and when there is open discussion about the possibilities of influencing political moods with the help of digital media technologies, an in-depth examination of the various functionalities and possibilities of cultural affect circulation seems more important to us than ever.

With “psychotechnology”, we want to bring the entire spectrum of these techniques of influence to the fore. In doing so, we are taking up the abandoned semantic potential of the older term “psychotechnics” – with its profound ambivalences. On the one hand, psychotechnics was an affirmative project of applied psychology in the 1920s and 1930s; on the other hand, it became the epitome of propaganda and illicit influence in the post-war period. Only since the 1980s has there been a case-by-case reassessment of the semantics of the psychotechnical: in literary studies (Friedrich Kittler), media theory (Ute Holl, Stefan Rieger) and the philosophy of technology (Bernard Stiegler). The shift from psychotechnics to psychotechnology also takes into account the automation and computerisation of affective, attentional and cognitive processes.

The aim of the workshop is, first, to conceptually clarify the talk of psychotechniques and psychotechnologies and, second, to make productive use of what we see as their unexplored semantic potential. To this end, on the first day, “workshop discussions” will be held with student audience; on the second day, internal discussions will follow, which will also include the planning of a joint publication.

Programm

28.6.2022 Werkstattgespräche

09:00 Uhr Julia Weber & Bernd Bösel: Begrüßung und Einführung

09:30 Uhr Jeannie Moser: Kluger Umgang mit Leidenschaften. Macchiavelli und Gracián

10:15 Uhr Pause

10:45 Uhr Martina Bengert: Präsenz erfahrbar machen. Zum Kenotischen bei Marina Abramović

11:30 Uhr André Otto: Sprünge auf dem disc-horse. Psychotechnologie und textuelle Pragmatik

12:15 Uhr Mittagessen

13:15 Uhr Bernd Bösel: Die Technizität des Psychischen

14:00 Uhr Jule Govrin: Authentizitätsbegehren und autoritäre Affektökonomien.

Digitale Dynamiken zwischen Differenz und Ressentiment

14:45 Uhr Pause

15:00 Uhr Benjamin Nickl & Christopher J. Müller: Canned Laughter: Die Technologisierung des Humors

ab 16 Uhr gemeinsamer Ausklang in der Alten Luise

A joint workshop of the Brandenburg Centre for Media Studies (ZeM) and the Einstein Foundation Berlin.

Organisation: Bernd Bösel (University of Potsdam, ZeM) and Julia Weber (Peter Szondi Institute of the FU Berlin).