Epistèmes concrètes. Coding knowledge

In this season’s last colloquium session, junior researcher Felix Gerloff will present aspects of his PhD project on »Coding Epistemologies« as well as transgressing desiderata for design research. His research focuses on the re-development of programming as a cultural technique, computational thinking and coding epistemologies in human-machine-collaborations. Educational programming environments teach coding skills to novices by using problem-oriented, concrete and ‘live’ approaches to counter the abstractness and opacity of computational processes. Similar properties are being mobilized in the context of digital humanities tools – another subject area where knowledge production is being modulated by coding epistemologies. Thanks to the computer being a multi-media machine, knowledge becomes rendered into ›epistèmes concrètes‹ that can be manipulated and rearranged at a swipe of the finger. With each step of mediation dimensions of an object are being abstracted while others become more concrete. How can coding epistemologies be characterized that are being cultivated in this mix of computational & sensory practices, processes & objects?