University of Siegen
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Publication Access status: Open Access , What if you weave your own story? Curating Authorship in WE ARE NOT CARPETS(2026)This article examines the collaborative research and exhibition project WE ARE NOT CARPETS: I Tell You My Story as an intervention into the socially organized anonymity of carpet weavers. The article argues that this anonymity is not simply a gap in knowledge, but a field of active not-knowing sustained by an epistemology of ignorance and by the scopic economy through which carpets circulate as cultural and narrative commodities. Against a regime of curiosity directed toward pattern, region, authenticity, technique, and price, but rarely toward the weaver, the project asked weaver-collaborators: What if, instead of weaving the market’s pre-given designs, you wove your own story? Drawing on the carpets, the weavers’ writings and reflections, collaborative curatorial practice, and audience responses across exhibitions in Cologne and Siegen, the article traces three interconnected displacements: the emergence of the weaver in an authorial position; the development of a multimodal curatorial practice that holds social recognition together with aesthetic indeterminacy; and the formation of a new literacy that reconfigures the relations among weaver, viewer, researcher, and curator. Reading through Rancière’s concepts of the distribution of the sensible and dissensus, the article argues that authorship operates here not as the addition of a missing voice, but as an interruption of the scene that separates making from the authority to determine meaning, form, circulation, and interpretation. Curating, in turn, becomes a practice of care for the circulation, return, and negotiation of meaning across the unstable seams between these positions.Source Type:BookSeries:Working paper series / SFB 1187 Medien der KooperationVolume number:431 1 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Publication Access status: Open Access , The Idleness of Mobility Behaviour – Contributions and Challenges of Subsidisation and Digitalisation to Turn the Tide in Favor of Sustainable Public Transport(2026-03-24)This dissertation examines how innovative mobility concepts, price mechanisms, and technological developments influence mobility behaviour, the acceptance of sustainable modes of transport, and the future design of public transport (PT) in Germany. Drawing on Vincent Kaufmann’s concept of mobility as a form of social action potential, mobility is understood as the interplay of structural access, individual capabilities, and cultural processes of appropriation. The dissertation thus addresses a research gap at the intersection of behavioural economics, social sciences, and technological mobility research. The work employs a mixed-method design combining quantitative analyses on price and subsidy mechanisms (Studies 1–3) with qualitative investigations on digitalisation and autonomous buses (Studies 4–6). User surveys, regression models, expert interviews, and scenario-based explorations provide a differentiated empirical picture of current and potential mobility dynamics. The findings reveal that price incentives – such as climate tickets or rising fuel prices – can trigger short-term shifts in the modal split, yet do not induce a sustained shift away from private motorised transport (PMT) in the absence of structural improvements. Once subsidies run out, PMT is frequently chosen again, particularly in regions with limited PT quality. Price mechanisms thus unfold their effectiveness only in combination with reliable, spatially accessible, and userfriendly services – a core dimension of Kaufmann’s mobility concept. Furthermore, the results show that ecological motivation is constrained by economic conditions. During periods of economic volatility, financial considerations tend to dominate mobility decisions. Socially balanced fare models and targeted subsidies are therefore central prerequisites for socially viable mobility strategies. Digitalisation offers the potential to structurally reduce deficits in PT provision. Digital bus stop concepts, real-time information and mobility platforms improve accessibility and the user experience, while on-demand services enhance flexibility, particularly in rural areas. However, the success of digital innovations ultimately depends on societal acceptance. The studies indicate that, although autonomous buses are regarded as a response to the growing shortage of bus drivers, reservations persist, especially among younger users, driven less by technical concerns and more by social and work-related considerations. The findings show implications for three groups of stakeholders. For policy makers, a systemic approach is required that integrates pricing, infrastructure development, and digitalisation. For mobility users, the results highlight that conscious mode choice, digital competencies, and active participation in feedback or planning processes constitute essential elements of stable modal-shift dynamics. Transport companies face the challenge of evolving from reactive service providers to strategic designers of multimodal mobility environments that integrate physical, digital, and fare-related components. Overall, the studies demonstrate that sustainable modal shift is not the result of isolated measures but emerges from the multifaceted interaction of structural, cultural, and technological factors. Transforming PT therefore requires long-term, socially balanced, and technologically adaptive strategies. Looking ahead, digital innovations, autonomous driving, and integrative subsidy structures will be key components of a mobility culture that aligns ecological objectives with social participation and everyday functionality. This dissertation thus contributes to the theoretical foundation and empirical analysis of the mobility transition and identifies central avenues for future national and international research.Source Type:Doctoral Thesis4 3 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Publication Access status: Open Access , The Multiple Returns of Connectionism: Theory and History of Artificial Intelligence(2026)In light of the recent boom in artificial intelligence, what future and what new environments should research in media and cultural techniques focus on? This article returns to a fundamental question posed by Marcel Mauss regarding the constitution of techniques between specific and general purposes. First, it offers a brief description of the current state of machine learning and recent AI developments between specialization and universalization. Second, I propose a genealogy of artificial intelligence between nature and cultural techniques. It inquires into the historical recurrence of connectionist practices, algorithms, and styles of thinking and acting as a condition of current AI technologies. How could biological neurons become artificial neural networks that work as the infrastructural foundation of artificial intelligence? Third, what is at stake here are the notions of media and mediation themselves. Due to the naturalization and habitualization of connectionist AI, they are becoming statistically operationalized, data-intensive networks.Source Type:BookSeries:Working paper series / SFB 1187 Medien der KooperationVolume number:4267 25 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Publication Access status: Open Access , Consumers’ Information Systems: Managing Consumption within Households and in Interaction with Digital Firms(2026-05)This dissertation investigates the information systems underlying consumption by shifting the analytical focus from firms to private households. While traditional Information Systems research has extensively examined how digital technologies support organizational processes within firms, the complementary domain of consumption—where individuals coordinate, manage, and enact market transactions—has remained comparatively underexplored. Building on the premise that consumption is not a passive act but involves substantial managerial, coordinative, and cognitive effort, I conceptualize these activities as consumers’ work. This work unfolds within the household as an economic unit as well as at its boundary to the market, where consumers interact with firms under conditions of bounded rationality, information asymmetries, and an increasing digitalization driven by the platform economy and a growing “everything-as-a-service” subscription paradigm. The theoretical foundation integrates perspectives from sociology, (New) Home Economics, as well as New Institutional approaches, and synthesizes them to be examined through a socio-technical IS lens. Sociological research highlights the often invisible, unequally distributed, and cognitively demanding nature of household labor, particularly its managerial and administrative dimensions. Economic perspectives reconceptualize households as productive units and emphasize the costs of coordination inherent in market transactions. Complementing these views and following prior empirical research on money work within the CSCW and HCI communities as well as theoretical considerations on technically intermediated markets, IS research provides a newly socio-technical understanding of consumers’ work systems and mechanisms. Methodologically, the dissertation follows a retroductive design inquiry grounded in critical realism and abductive reasoning, moving iteratively between a problem space (consumers’ work) and a solution space (emerging work-supporting technologies). It combines inductive empirical exploration with theory-building across four interrelated studies conducted in Germany, each addressing a specific research objective. Study 1 follows the artifact “invoice” through 17 households to reconstruct domestic accounting as a spatio-temporal practice. Study 2 develops a taxonomy of twelve administrative task categories and quantifies temporal workload, mental workload, and satisfaction in an online survey with 617 socio-demographically distributed participants. Study 3, drawing on the same dataset, maps the devices, tools, specialized software, and physical workplaces consumers appropriate for this office-like work at home. Study 4 employs interviews and a week-long field study with five intermediary firms in finance, insurance, utilities, health, and general administration to investigate how intermediaries mediate and partially take over consumers’ work in market coordination. Together, the studies provide a mixed-method, multi-level, and multi-perspective understanding of consumers’ work across different tasks involving different kinds of technologies. The dissertation’s outcome advances both theory and practice by conceptualizing consumers’ work as a boundary practice situated between households and markets, articulated through a socio-technical framework that captures the interplay of structures, people, tasks, and technologies. Empirically, the findings demonstrate that consumers perform substantial, often underestimated and unseen labor in managing consumption. Invoice handling, for example, unfolds as a fragmented spatio-temporal practice across paper-based and digital media. The identified twelve administrative task categories differ considerably in mental workload and satisfaction, with tax affairs, problem management, governmental affairs, long term contracts, and insurance emerging as priority pain points for design. Emerging digital services, from financial management tools and contract managers to intermediary platforms, already intervene in and reshape these work practices. Conceptually, the dissertation contributes (I.) an integrated chain of consumption management that links intra-household administration with market-directed activities across five phases (anticipating, identifying, deciding, monitoring, and modifying); (II.) the introduction of heteronomy imposed by external institutions as a design variable that work supporting technology must explicitly address rather than ignore; and (III.) a reframing of intermediaries as a socio-technical infrastructure of market cooperation that bridges social and technical interoperability gaps through its own socio-technical measures, such as “adversarial” or “backward” interoperability. In doing so, the dissertation provides an empirically grounded conceptualization of theories such as intermediation or Vendor Relationship Management while also generating new empirical evidence and concepts. By positioning consumers as active agents who perform essential economic work, this dissertation opens a new line of inquiry for IS research and contributes to a broader understanding of digital transformation that encompasses not only firms but also the everyday practices of individuals in the economy. It thereby extends the traditionally firm-centered focus of Business Informatics with a complementary consumer-centered perspective and positions Consumer Informatics as an essential site of inquiry within IS research.Source Type:Doctoral Thesis23 6
