Researchers*
Thomas Allmer
My research interests are as follows:
- Critical social theory
- Political economy of media and communication
- Sociology of technology
- Digital labour and capitalism
- Social media/digital media/Internet/new information and communication technologies and society
- Privacy and surveillance studies
- Academic labour
Shima Beigi
Dr. Shima Beigi is a smart city consultant, yoga teacher, and the founder of the Mindful Smart City Academy. Originally a resilience scientist, Shima has an impressive international academic track record (Islamic Azad University North Tehran Branch, University of Bristol, University of Oxford, Vrije Universiteit Brussel). In order to address the challenges of digitalization for urban systems, she developed Mindfulness Engineering™ which connects STEM science and smart cities to neuroscience, Sufism and mindfulness. Her new book Mindful Smart Cities: Rethinking Smart Cities with Mindfulness Engineering applies the analytical lens of her theory and its interactive design toolkit. The main aim of its design protocol is focused on making people, places and interfaces mindfully smart.
David Braunstein
Magister in Psychology, BA, MA in Philosophy, PhD student in Philosophy.
Main research interests: theory of society and the question of how people organize their lives socially and economically, based on the theory of Niklas Luhmann.
Currently working on combining contemporary theories of psychology, sociology and philosophy because our modern global challenges lead us to go beyond disicplinary limitations.
Spomenka Celebic
Spomenka Celebic is a Master’s student at the University of Vienna at the Department for Cultural and Social Anthropology.
Out of the wide spectrum in the field of anthropology, her main focus remains on the contemporary society in its various perspectives. Predominantly, she is interested in rising political populist parties in Western Europe and their engagement on social media, therefore their influence on public opinion and reaching the widest audience using different tools on social media.
Moreover, using and combining both ethnographic and theoretical approach, and within her Master thesis, Spomenka is closely looking at the recent migrations from the Middle East with the emphasis on the Balkans region where the refugees find themselves in transition. This research is followed by observation of the political background, including changes in current society as well as local and international support provided for the refugees.
Renate C.-Z.-Quehenberger
Dr. Renate C.-Z.-Quehenberger received her PhD at the Department of Art & Science Transfer at the University of Applied Arts Vienna where she pursued her FWF/PEEK project QUANTUM CINEMA (http://quantumcinema.uni-ak.ac.at) with media theorist Peter Weibel for the visualization of quantum phenomena by means of 3D animated hyper-Euclidean geometry & accomplished the first 3D visualization of the 5- respectively 10-dimensional space (link: https://www.imaginary.org/film/the-epita-dodecahedron-visualizing-poincares-dodecahedral-space).
She is promoting her mathematical finding 3D representation of the Penrose Kites & Darts Tiling (Epitahedron, E±), unit-cell of the 5-dimensional space identified as Plato’s 5th element in educational activities as ÖEAD Young Science Ambassador and as artist in various media via exhibitions (Neues Museum Weimar, Bozar Brussels, Milano Digital Art Week a.m.o.) and film screenings (Ars Electronica, ASIFA Festivals).
She held numerous presentations and published articles (https://dieangewandte.academia.edu/RenateQuehenberger) in the fields of contemporary arts, geometry, archeology, social sciences, AI, quantum computing (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-95538-0_7) and quantum information and sociology (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-39113-2_5)
For her visualization of 5-dimensional unifying theories she received the 1st prize of the Entropy Best Poster Awards at the Linnaeus Conference UQT 2018.
Trained in visualizations of complex systems she aims at contributing her visionary ideas to societal & environmental problems of the real world.
Besides being an active GSIS board member she works on various publications and projects (https://gsis.at/research/projects-1/, https://gsis.at/research/projects-2/.
(Photo: Alaa Alkurdi)
Peter Fleissner
Expert in social cybernetics. Simulated recently COVID-19 endemics in European countries.
Annette Grathoff
I made my PhD in Biology, Chemical Ecology due to a strong interest in learning holistic approaches. When I supervised projects at the Vienna city administration for environmental services, MA 22 in 2010, it became clear that for a solid and scientifically grounded argumentation in how to organize social and environmental system administration in the future, a deep understanding of systems and information sciences is needed.
Which difference makes a difference? We know such differences from Physics, namely forces. In music a rhythm or a relation between frequencies can trigger a sensation. Those are only two examples for cases where we know differences which can make differences. A difference is there because it is perceptible in principle. A force can change rates and distributions…
My focus is to consider all experiences, observations and techniques from science and art in one go when working on finding answers to the question “What is making differences which can make differences?”
My approach to physical information is taking an evolutionary perspective thinking recursively and in nested networks of different kinds.
Teresa Guarda
Visiting Professor at Systems Department, Universidad Estatal Peninsula Santa Elena – UPSE, Ecuador
Lena Hendlmeier
Her independent work is to be found between art, design and craftsmanship with a focus on structures, form, social interaction and society landscapes. As a lecturer and researcher, she explores playful learning and learning playfully and concentrates on systems science, game design and the playfulness of human kind.
Wolfgang Hofkirchner
Contributes to Convivialism and Digital Humanism by formulating convivial and digital imperatives for our time. Developed the critical Techno-Social Systems concept. Latest book: "The Logic of the Third. A Paradigm Shift to a Shared Future for Humanity" (2023).
Sophie Huber-Lachner
Works in media production and public communication
Studied Multimedia Art at FH Salzburg and Southampton Institute, Great Britain
Completed her doctoral thesis at the ICT&S Center for Information and Communication Technologies & Society in Salzburg
Recently specialized in Digital Journalism at fjum Forum Journalismus und Medien, Vienna
Currently, she focuses on her first feature length documentary film
She is interested in "Zukunftsfähigkeit" and "Conviviality"
That's why she closely looks at projects pioneering in the fields of co-learning, co-working and co-liviing
She is a proud mother of two and describes herself as a "dialectic optimist"
Links:
Asimina Koukou
Asimina Koukou completed her PhD in Communication at the University of Vienna, under the supervision of Professor Katharine Sarikakis and Associate Professor Wolfgang Hofkirchner. In her PhD work, she explored the governance of communicative spaces in times of crisis through the lens of systems theory. In particular, she investigated the role of social movements' discourses (produced and distributed via the Internet) in the construction of identity, cosmopolitanism and the Commons.
Her research interests lie at the intersection of media and new technologies with social justice, human rights and social change.
Asimina has published book chapters and peer-reviewed articles in national and international social science journals.
She is currently working on a paper for the formation of an integrativist governance model for Europe.
Robert K. Logan
Cecile Malaspina
Cecile Malaspina is the author of An Epistemology of Noise, Bloomsbury, 2018 and principal translator, with the collaboration of John Rogove, of Gilbert Simondon, On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects, Univocal Publishing / Minnesota University Press, 2016. She is member of the editorial board at Copy Press and ANGELAKI: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities. Based in London, she is affiliated with the CNRS-Université Paris 7, Laboratoire SPHERE, (UMR 7219), France.
Links:
http://www.sphere.univ-paris-diderot.fr/spip.php?article2112&lang=fr
http://www.copypress.co.uk/index/
https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cang20/current
https://www.facebook.com/pg/AngelakiJTH/posts/?ref=page_internal
https://camri.ac.uk/media-philosophy/
Josef Mühlbauer
Josef Mühlbauer BA MA is a political scientist and philosopher. He worked as a scientific researcher for the Demokratiezentrum and is a founding member of the Varna Institute for Peace Research (VIPR).
His books "Zur imperialen Lebensweise" (2022) & "Kritische Friedensforschung" (2024) have been published by the Mandelbaum Verlag. He taught at universities in Germany (Hochschule für Gesellschaftsgestaltung in Koblenz) and Austria (PH Klagenfurt & PH Burgenland).
His research interests:
- Techno-social-ecological transformation
- Critical peace studies
- Political Philosophy
Vangelis Papadimitropoulos
Vangelis Papadimitropoulos is a political theorist, social scientist, independent researcher, and editor holding a Ph.D. in political philosophy. Formerly a Research Affiliate and post-doc researcher at the Free University of Amsterdam and the University of Limerick, he has written extensively on the topic of commons.
Livia Regen
Livia Regen is a master’s candidate in Social-Ecological Economics and Policy at the University of Economics and Business Vienna. She is currently finalising her thesis on selected media companies’ responses to the climate crisis in the landscape of the international English-language press. For the purpose of her study, she conceptualises the media both in terms of content and infrastructure (i.e., ideational and material), and through the theoretical lens of the critical political economy of the media explores to what degree the media companies’ agency is constrained by macroeconomic structures. Additionally, the thesis investigates to what degree ethics play a role in media companies’ reactions to the climate crisis, the response to which is understood as an ethical question, albeit shaped by capitalist dynamics. She, further, is a coordinator of Degrowth & Strategy (forthcoming, 2021), a publication by Degrowth Vienna, and is part of the degrowth.info blog editorial team. In 2020, she collaborated with researchers at GSIS on a research grant application.
Annette Schlemm
Physicist and Philosopher.
My research interests are as follows:
Philosophy of Science
Dialectics (Hegel and so on)
Future of Mankind (Anthropocene, planetary boundaries, climate change, climate engineering, future after capitalism and transformation/revolution...)
For a long time I worked as an industrial physicist, but I was also externally involved in EU research collaborations and employed as a staff member at the University of Bonn.
I published my most interesting work online as a "freelancer": see (in German) http://www.thur.de/philo and https://philosophenstuebchen.wordpress.com/
I've written three books so far, and I'm working on the next two right now.
Sebastian Sevignani
Sebastian's current research focuses on the following issues:
- Critical Theory of Needs in the Digital Age: Revisiting critical theories of needs and need development. Situation need development in a critical theory of capitalism. Developing a notion of informational needs and digital needs and situating in the development of digital capitalism.
- Writing a text book on Historical Materialism and Critical Media and Communication Theory.
- Critical Theory of Privacy: Developing a critical, non-individualistic theory of privacy. Situation privacy in the political economy of capitalism. Pointing to social contradictions around the value and need of privacy. Researching social media users' attitudes towards privacy.
- Understanding Digital Capitalism: What are the qualities of digital capitalism as a new form of socil formation? What is its economic structure? How is it regulated politically? Which ideologies, cultural values and represenations are specific to its social formation?
Tomáš Sigmund
Tomáš Sigmund is concerned with the relation of society and technology and man to the world in general. His areas of interest cover the topics of ethics, information ethics, system sciences, semiotics, media and phenomenology. He warns against totality in any of its manifestation and stresses respect towards otherness.
Hendrik Theine
Hendrik Theine, PhD is a post-doctoral researcher at the Linz Institute for transformative Change (LIFT_C) and the Institut für die Gesamtanalyse der Wirtschaft (ICAE), Johannes Kepler Universität Linz. His research and teaching focus on how economic knowledge shapes the media discourse on the climate crisis and transformation. He is part of the organising team of the Netzwerk kritische Kommunikationswissenschaft, a board member of BEIGEWUM (Beirat für gesellschafts-, wirtschafts-, umweltpolitische Alternativen) and co-editor of the book "Klimasoziale Politik".
* This list contains the names of researchers who currently, on a voluntary basis or paid, in part or in whole, work under the umbrella of The Institute for the integration of systems, information and critical social sciences or the implementation thereof, irrespective of whether or not they are Members.