Paul Heinicker: Modeling Diagrams Beyond Anthropocentric Scales

We have ceased to be capable of understanding the extensive systemic changes of our time. Complex issues, such as pandemics or climate change, are modeled and we try to understand them through abstract data that is mediated to us by their visualizations. Relating to the world thus becomes a diagrammatic experience. In my lecture, I pose the question of whether and how we can conceptualize these vast, if not directly planetary, diagrams – or better, cosmograms. What diagram is hiding our planet? And how do we learn to read it?
Paul Heinicker is a design researcher engaged in discursive design concepts focusing on the culture and politics of diagrammatic representations and data visualizations. His academic practice involves both visual research and written analysis. He is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Media and Arts at the University of Potsdam and a research assistant at the Interaction Design Lab at the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam. He studied multimedia technologies (B.Eng.) and user interface design (MA); he participated in postgraduate programs at the University of Malmö and the 2nd year of the The New Normal program at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture, and Design in Moscow.
Curator of the lecture series: Lukáš Likavčan