Current
A Cultural and Technological History of the Gas Stations
The Meaning of Writing and Drawing in the Generation and Acquisition of Knowledge
Completed
Technical Artefacts and their Stories
We remind ourselves daily of personal, social and political events. Often, our memories are caused not only by visual and auditory perceptions, but by artifacts as well. In this teaching project, the function of technical artifacts as memory object, which carry individual as well as collective cultural memories, are investigated. Using the method of oral history, the connection between artifacts and memory is examined by considering which events are connected to various objects and their roles for both individuals and groups. http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/hi/gnt/ausstellungen/techart/
Housewives, Cookbooks and Energy Supply Companies -The Electric Kitchen as a Concept of Modern Household Management
Our eating, stockpiling, preparing and cooking habits changed significantly with the implementation of electric household appliances. Cookbooks are a rarely used source in the history of technology and consumption. But, they allow insight into the ideas of food preparation practices and therefore the household appliances used. Some cookbooks, put together by energy supply companies, promise a modern, comfortable, and better daily kitchen routine which was only possible in a fully electric kitchen (vollelektrische Küche). Electric stove cookbooks educate users to buy electric household appliances and create new needs even before appliances were part of the standard household equipment. My thesis is that on one hand knowledge about manual skills and traditional cook procedures were lost in this process while on the other hand new knowledge concerning the handling of electric household appliances for preparation and cooking were gained by the users. This process is illustrated in a case study of the cookbook Das elektrische Kochen (first edited by the German energy supply company Berliner Kraft und Licht Aktiengesellschaft (BEWAG)) for the period of 1930 to 2006 throughout the territory of Germany (after Second World War western Germany). The importance of Das elektrische Kochen as important source of a cultural history of technology lies not only in the fact that it accompanied the implementation of electric household appliances since the 1930s until today. Moreover it served the BEWAG, especially between the 1930s and 1980s, as a medium for an ongoing awaken of new needs and as education medium for increasing private energy consumption.
Spaces of Knowledge in the Craft of Piano Making 1830-1930 (PhD)
In piano making a significant change took place in the course of the industrial revolution. Production methods transformed during the second half of 19th century from the traditional arts and crafts workshop into a modern production unit based on the division of labour. However, the traditional manufacturing of music instruments also encompassed a specific, spatially bound working knowledge. This working knowledge was characterised by an integration in the physical body of the worker, and it was transferred informally, including individual experiences. This knowledge played an essential role for the production of high quality music instruments. My dissertation project aims to answer the question how knowledge and skills were passed on in the craft of piano making. Knowledge appeared in different spaces. For example in individual notebooks (storage medium of knowledge), in professional journals (formus of knowledge) and in institutions of research like acoustic labaratories from piano making factories (sites of knowledge). Therefore, research needs to analyse the relations between formal as well as personal knowledge and space and technology. July 2010 Viva at Department for History and Social Science, Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany.
Production networks and bodily bounded working knowledge in violin making
Violin making was at the end of the 19th Century an industrialized production sector. Interestingly the mass production of violins was not organized in large factories. In the boehmian Village Schönbach it was characterized by an extensive production network based on the division of labor combined with an irreplacabel bodily bounded working knowledge. In The aim of this project was to answer the question how the process of industrialization could lead to massporduction of violins.
