Sebastian Vehlken

Curriculum

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Vehlken is a media theorist and cultural historian. He works at the ICAM  Institute for Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media at Leuphana University Lüneburg and is Senior Researcher at MECS, the Institute for Advanced Study on Media Cultures of Computer Simulation. In 2015/16 he was visiting professor at Humboldt University Berlin, at the University of Vienna, and at Leuphana, and Research Fellow at the IFK Vienna.

Sebastian Vehlken studied Media Studies and Economics at Ruhr-University Bochum and at Edith Cowan University, Perth. From 2005-2007, he was a DFG scholarship holder in the Graduate School »Media of History – History of Media« at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, and from 2007-2010 research associate (predoc) in Media Philosophy, University of Vienna. In 2010, he finished his Ph.D. thesis on a media history of biological and computational swarm intelligence at the Institute for Culture of Humboldt University Berlin. From 2010-2013, he was research associate (postdoc) at ICAm, and from 2013-17 associate director at MECS.

Sebastian Vehlken’s main research interests focus on media theory, cultural techniques, the media history of computer simulation and supercomputing, the atomic age, and oceans as spaces of knowledge. His current research project explores the media history of computer simulations in the context of civil nuclear energy technology in West Germany (FRG), with a focus on the development of fast breeder programs. Its preliminary title is Plutonium Worlds. Computer Simulation and Nuclear Energy 1960-1980. 

Research interests

Sebastian Vehlken’s main research interests focus on media theory, cultural techniques, the media history of computer simulation and supercomputing, the atomic age, and oceans as spaces of knowledge. His current research project explores the media history of computer simulations in the context of civil nuclear energy technology in West Germany (FRG), with a focus on the development of fast breeder programs. Its preliminary title is »Plutonium Worlds. Computer Simulation and Nuclear Energy 1960-1980«. 

Teaching

Media Theory, Media History, Cultural Techniques