On our new blog, CET – CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT, TECHNOLOGY, you can explore some of our past work, as well as our present and upcoming projects.
We are a group of people who are interested in cultural, technoscientific and artistic practices which is reflected in a variety of activities and products. Our work can be classified as belonging to the emerging field of environmental humanities. The Blog's Editorial Board consists of individuals from the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg and other predominantly academic institutions, as well as freelance scientists and artists.
Some projects deal with issues surrounding mining and its consequences, as BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg is located in the middle of one of Europe's largest opencast lignite mining areas, which is nearing the end of its operational life. The BTU is also located in the heart of the historic settlement area of the Sorbs, whose indigenous culture is lived through specific practices in dealing with nature, technology, and language. Other topics have no or only marginal connection with local culture, such as the question of socio-technical imaginaries and the relationships between nature and culture in post-war or even war zones.
The role of artistic research and the question of the extent to which cultural, technoscientific, and artistic practices are connected and how they differ from one another can be considered one of the most challenging questions in the contemporary landscape of knowledge cultures. It concerns the construction of scientific facts as well as the conditions that make it possible to relate different forms of knowledge to one another in joint action, for example in participatory research.
The study of water is a recurring theme in much of the work carried out at the chair, which may involve epistemic and ontological questions of water research, visual representations of waterscapes, or the transformation of water infrastructures. Thinking with water is a rhetorical device that allows us to move between different relational approaches, such as “new materialism,” “contemporary archipelagic thinking,” or “in-between” as material and social spaces of transformation.
The blog is scheduled to launch at the end of October 2025. We welcome feedback and, of course, offers to contribute (contact schwarza@b-tu.de).
