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Dr. Johannes Bennke | The Smart Family Institute
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Dr. Johannes Bennke

.
Dr.
Johannes
Bennke
Post-Doc Fellow of the Minerva Foundation
johannes.bennke@mail.huji.ac.il
Personal Website

Johannes Bennke is a Post-Doc Fellow of the Minerva Foundation of the Max Planck Society at The Smart Family Institute for Communications at the Dept. of Communication and Journalism at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

My post-doc project is entitled: Media of Verification. From Seals and Scribes to Blockchain. In this project I explore the media historical, theoretical as well as aesthetic implications of blockchain in order to develop a critical understanding of the implication of this medium for trust, time, and memory from a media studies perspective.

The main goal of the project is to develop a novel media theoretical method for analyzing blockchain technology based on a framework I call “media of verification”. Media of verification denote a conceptual framework that includes methods, apparatuses, protocols, and infrastructures for building trust in digital societies. To specify media of verification, I look at cultural techniques of law and governance such as spelling, stamping, signing, and sealing. The analysis also includes crypto artworks that reflect on the Web3 ecosystem. This is to explore yet unrelated archeological instances of such operations, therefore relating these technologies to other historical and theoretical contexts in a still little explored field in media studies. The results will offer not only the possibility to elaborate on a media theoretical framework for blockchain, but also for how to describe the ethical, economical, ecological, legal, and political implications of this technology.

In 2021 I submitted my dissertation at the Center of Excellence Media Anthropology at Bauhaus-University Weimar. My dissertation Obliteration. For a Particular Media Philosophy after Emmanuel Levinas deals with the aesthetic, image and media philosophical thinking in the work of Emmanuel Levinas. Here, obliteration is developed as a key media philosophical concept of difference for an epistemology of forgetting. With its forms of deletion and destruction it becomes a fundamental condition of creativity, renewal and future oriented particular practices.

I am also an “Associate PNB Fellow” at the Postdoc Network Brandenburg and an associate at the Selma-Stern-Centre for Jewish Studies Berlin Brandenburg.

 

Research Interests

  • Media Theory
  • Media Philosophy
  • Image Philosophy
  • Philosophy of Technology
  • Media of Verification
  • Digital Commemoration
  • Aesthetics
  • Crypto art / NFT art
  • Media Ethics
  • Theory of the Archive
  • Online Governance

 

Selected Publications

Monographies

Edited Volumes

  • Navigationen, Vol. 25, Nr. 1 (2025): Media Cultures of Value? Asset Logics, Online-Life, and Art in Web3. Guest editor with Markus Rautzenberg, Mirjam Schaub [forthcoming].
  • Johannes Bennke, Dieter Mersch (Eds.): Levinas und die Künste. Bielefeld: transcript 2024 [forthcoming].
  • communication +1, Vol. 10 (2023): Media of Verification. Guest editor [forthcoming].
  • Johannes Bennke, Virgil Brower (Eds.): Internationales Jahrbuch für Medienphilosophie, Band 7, Mediality/Theology/Religion. Berlin: de Gruyter 2021.
  • Johannes Bennke, Johanna Seifert, Martin Siegler, Christina Terberl (Eds.): Das Mitsein der Medien. Prekäre Koexistenzen von Menschen, Maschinen und Algorithmen. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink Verlag 2018.

Articles

  • „Blockchain as Medium of Verification”, in: communication+1 10 (2023) [forthcoming].

  • „Media of Verification: An Introduction”, in: communication+1 10 (2023) [forthcoming].

  • „Levinas and Work on the Social”, in: LSMU Akademine leidyba (Ed.): Other and Being Other with Epilepsy: Challenges for Psychosocial Consulting. Kaunas: LSMU Akademine leidyba 2023, pp. 15-21.

  • "Vorbemerkungen zu einer Logik des Digitalen. Obfuskation in Codes, Kunst und Datenvisualisierung". In: Oliver Ruf, Lars C. Grabbe (Eds.): Technik-Ästhetik. Zur materialen und rezeptiven Systematisierung techno-ästhetischer Realität. Bielefeld: transcript 2022 [forthcoming].

  • Johannes Bennke, Amit Pinchevski: „Media, Mediation, Mediality“, in: communication +1, Vol. 9 (2022).

  • „Das Bilderverbot in der Ästhetik von Emmanuel Levinas“. In: Beniamino Fortis (Ed.): Bild und Idol. Perspektiven aus Philosophie und jüdischem Denken. Berlin: Peter Lang 2022, pp. 157-184.

  • Johannes Bennke, Virgil Brower: „Mediality/Theology/Religion. Aspects of a Singular Encounter“. In: Thems. (Eds.): Internationales Jahrbuch für Medienphilosophie, Band 7, Medialität/Theologie/Religion. Berlin: de Gruyter 2021, pp. 13–28.

  • „Genesis and Medium of Media Philosophy”. In: Ação Midiática Vol. 7 (2019), https://revistas.ufpr.br/acaomidiatica/article/view/67751/39339.

  • „Vorwort“. In: Emmanuel Levinas: Die Obliteration. Gespräch mit Françoise Armengaud über das Werk von Sacha Sosno. Zürich/Berlin, diaphanes 2019, pp. 7–28.

  • „Preface“. In: Emmanuel Levinas: On Obliteration. An Interview with Françoise Armengaud concerning the Work of Sacha Sosno. Transl. by Brian Alkire, University of Chicago Press 2019, pp. 7–26.

  • „Testimonial Image Practices as a Politics of Aesthetics after Levinas“. In: Religions Vol. 9, Nr. 12 (2019),  https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/levinas.

  • „Ikonisches Nachleben. Zur Einzelausstellung „Found Fragments“ von James Benning in der Galerie Neugerriemschneider, 6.2.-3.3.2018“. In: texte zur kunst, June 2018, Nr. 110, pp. 212–215.

  • Die Erschütterung des Humanen. In: Cargo No. 30 (2016), pp. 54-62.

  • „Zur Ethik des Bildes bei Emmanuel Lévinas“. In: figurationen. gender literatur kunst: Visuelles Denken/Visual Thinking, ed. by Dieter Mersch, No. 1 (2016), pp. 93-114.

Awards and Prizes

  • 2023, Open Library Medienwissenschaft (OLM), Publication of Dissertation at transcript publishing house.
  • 2021–2023 - Post-Doc Fellow of the Minerva Foundation of the Max-Planck-Society at The Smart Family Institute of Communications at the Dept. of Communication and Journalism at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Host supervisor: Prof. Dr. Amit Pinchevski.
  • 2021 -  PhD Fellow, doctoral study program "Philosophy of Religion" in the Theology and Contemporary Culture Research Group at the Protestant Theological Faculty, supervisor: Dr. František Štěch.
  • 2020 - Ursula Lachnit-Fixson Scholarship of the Selma-Stern-Center for Jewish Studies Berlin/Brandenburg, Humboldt University Berlin, Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Micha Brumlik.
  • 2019 - Bauhaus-Finalizing-Grant.
  • 2016 - ERASMUS + Scholarship, Teaching abroad, Charles University Prague.
  • 2015–2019 - PhD Scholarship, Center of Excellence Media Anthropology, Bauhaus-University Weimar, Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Lorenz Engell, Prof. Dr. Dieter Mersch (ZHdK, Zurich).
  • 2014 - Best Master Thesis at the Design Department of the University of Applied Science Potsdam.
  • 2009–2010 - ERASMUS Scholarship, Cinéma et audiovisuel, Littérature comparée, Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3.
  • 2009–2014 - Student Scholarship, Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst e.V.
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