Participation in ERC Synergy Grant CultCryoThe Cultures of the Cryosphere. Infrastructures, Politics and Futures of Artificial Cooling (CultCryo)

26 October 2023, by Chris Biemann

Photo: UHH/Esfandiari

Whether in logistics, science or air conditioning in the home - the possibility of artificial cooling has a fundamental influence on the world we live in. Yet this "artificial cryosphere" and its consequences, for example for climate change, have hardly been researched to date. The ERC project "CultCryo" aims to change that. It is investigating how the infrastructure of artificial cooling on the planet is linked to cultural practices - exemplified by the areas of food, space cooling, biomedicine and computer science. Among other things, the project will involve a historical reconstruction as well as an ethical discussion of the practices and norms associated with the cryosphere.

The project, which will receive about 9.9 million euros, is coordinated by Dr. Alexander Friedrich of the Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research in Berlin, which has enlisted the project with TU Darmstadt as the lead institution. UHH is involved as a project partner. Chris Biemann, Professor of Language Technology at the UHH, and his team will provide the technical and computer science expertise for the digital conceptual history of the "artificial cryosphere" through the „Sense Clustering Over Time“ (SCoT) program. In addition to the TU Darmstadt and the UHH, the universities of Paderborn and Duisburg-Essen, the Australian National University Canberra as well as the University of Halle and the Institute for Social Ecological Research Frankfurt are also involved.

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