With Geoff Cox, Christian Ulrik Andersen, Armin Beverungen, Tatiana Bazzichelli, Kristoffer Gansing and the participants of the Researching BWPWAP PhD Conference/Workshop

This event brings together participants of the Researching BWPWAP workshop that preceded transmediale and was focused on the question of how BWPWAP can be interpreted in the context of research culture. This process culminated in the production of a peer-reviewed research newspaper—itself an experiment in new forms of scholarly publishing. Following the thread initiated last year with the collaborative production of the “World of the News” (transmediale 2k+12), the research newspaper is the thematic publication of transmediale 2013.

Strategies within software and net culture Back When Pluto Was A Planet became enmeshed with big business. Research culture was visited by a similar fate: Conferences were reduced to events to foster cultural capital, and scholarly communications were reduced to impact factors measured by grant givers. In light of all this, what kinds of technological and artistic practices are suggested by BWPWAP and might produce rhizomatic effects for research? Is research today more occupied with mundane acts of recategorization and—following Bologna—with what Lyotard already called performativity? Or does it still inspire the kind of marvel and wonder that so many ascribe to Pluto and that BWPWAP captures as a cultural term? If BWPWAP captures a time when transmedial culture was researched outside academia, we would like to reflect on how network culture and digital media contribute to and transform research culture, forcing it out of its closet and, if not into the solar system, then at least beyond the academy.