Computational Correspondences

This working paper presents the preliminary results of a masterclass in media ethnography that took place in April 2022 at the University of Siegen and was organised by SFB 1187 "Media of Cooperation". The central question was which research practices emerge when ethnographers understand the digital materiality of their research objects, instruments and environments as active participants within the research process. An approach to such a conscious correspondence (Weidle 2020) with digital materiality was initiated via the authoring software "Korsakow". What is special about Korsakow is the computer-generated multilinear linking of individual media assets it affords. By working with Korsakow, the participants of the masterclass explored and critically discussed possible new approaches to their research data, two of which are presented in this paper. For Astrid Vogelpohl, Korsakow represents a variant of combinatory visual research in which algorithms support the analysis process as non-human research partners. The extent to which the research paths differ from analytical work with primarily human partners is the focus of her elaboration. Tobias Leßner, on the other hand, first describes his personal approach to Korsakow and the accompanying irritations, questions and considerations against the background of his ethnographic work and then focuses on the pragmatic but also methodological implications of the shift of the ethnographer's authorship towards the algorithm and the power of interpretation towards the recipient. Ultimately, the approaches presented are starting points for further search movements for the digital and its (co-)operation in (media-)ethnographic research that reconfigures itself as diffractive in the context of the ontological turn (Mellander/Wiszmeg 2016). As part of the production of knowledge, this involves considering how the correspondence with digital materiality can be used to communicate research findings.