Jacob Birken
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jbirken.bsky.social
Jacob Birken
@jbirken.bsky.social
2.1K followers 1K following 3.4K posts
Futures historian & media archaeologist @ Uni Köln ~ @akgwds.bsky.social‬ ~ er || they ~ writes in EN & DE ~ http://www.jacob-birken.de ~ GLHF (◔◡◔✿)
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jbirken.bsky.social
Himmel? We got Himmel at home office
Der Bildschirmhintergrund von Windows XP, unten sanfte grüne Hügel, oben blauer Himmel mit Wölkchen
November 10, 2025 at 5:06 PM
jbirken.bsky.social
Bezeichnend wieder, wie das gleichzeitig 'klassisch' reaktionär (zurück aufs Land usw.) und terminally online ist, komplett mit Verweisen auf Balajis albernen "Network State", Cryptoquatsch und dank memes
"The application form for Return to the Land asks potential members to outline their ancestry and also respond to a range of questions about their social and cultural viewpoints, including whether they support foreign immigration, “transgenderism,” Covid-19 vaccines, and segregation. It also asks: “How often do you think about the Roman empire?” with answers ranging from “every day, at least once” to “a few times a week, probably” and “never.” This initial process only gets you approved to access private group chats on Telegram. For those who decide they want to move to Arkansas and become part of the community, “vetting for that level of involvement is much more thorough,” says Orwoll, though he declined to say what that process involved beyond conducting a “background check.”"
November 4, 2025 at 12:13 PM
jbirken.bsky.social
🎶 GEEZERS NEED ENLIGHTENMENT,
The title page of Thomas Paine's "Common Sense; addressed to the Inhabitants of America"
November 3, 2025 at 8:05 AM
jbirken.bsky.social
"A lady who has her head surrounded with a wire cap, and her hair stuck full of metal pins, and who at the same time wears silk stockings, that is stands upon dry silk, is to all intents and purposes an electric conductor, insolated and prepared for collecting the fire from the atmosphere"*
Scan of two pages with articles from the 1776 Pennsylvania Magazine
November 2, 2025 at 4:06 PM
jbirken.bsky.social
Have to go to bed but here's an illustration of some tools Jakob Langenbucher from Augsburg invented for experiments with electricity & specifically lightning, including a movable cloud (1780)
Print showing several models and tools. There's a kind of framed picture showing a huge cloud hovering over a village to the left, then a model of a town square placed on a large cube, a little ship inside or on some boxes with drawers, a model of a church and two thingies that are apparently models of clouds suspended in mobile-like contraptions.
November 1, 2025 at 10:22 PM
jbirken.bsky.social
... and that's ofc where the skull comes in - it's not just an 'interesting' prop for the photo of a prominent surgeon & scientist, but also the main subject of craniometry - 19th century racist pseudo-science used skulls as 'evidence' for the inferiority of non-white ppl
"By the time he retired in 1847, Warren had also amassed an anatomical teaching collection containing more than a thousand objects, which he donated to HMS. Included in this donation were 67 “national skulls” organized into five racial categories: “Caucasian Race,” “Hindoos etc. of Tartar Race,” “Peruvians,” Indigenous “American,” and “African Race.” These skulls were used to illustrate racial difference, and Warren commissioned the polygenist racial scientist Samuel George Morton to send a set of 12 casts of skulls from different racial groups."
November 1, 2025 at 9:44 PM
jbirken.bsky.social
I'm having the students read an early paper by Linda Kerber on the Society for the Study of Natural Philosophy in Boston, a group of amateur scientists ~1800 which also included Warren - here's her description of what those guys were up to during their meetings.
"Hailing Quincy's experiments as "successful" and "pleasing," and skipping Article 2 on the "Properties [...] of Heat, or Caloric," the group moved on to the study of oxygen. In one of these lectures, Dr. John Collins Warren held up a flask of blood which, after standing a while, had separated: the serum was pale red, the rest dark brown. Introducing oxygen and shaking the flask, he showed that the blood became "bright vermillion." But as for the next logical subject for discussion, oxygen's role in supporting animal life, that, Secretary William Emerson sternly noted, was "rather philosophical than chemical," and was not discussed."
November 1, 2025 at 9:44 PM
jbirken.bsky.social
Preparing some slides for Monday's history seminar and now I'm just one day late to post this creepy dude onto yr Halloween timelines. That's US surgeon John Collins Warren and if you know a bit about 19th century science history the skull is very much a red flag
November 1, 2025 at 9:44 PM
jbirken.bsky.social
Das scheint gerade echt programmatisch zu sein, auf LinkedIn hab ich letztens so was im Postfach gehabt - Austerity als Wellness, warum nicht einfach ✨loslassen✨ damit es der Industrie äh uns allen wieder besser geht 🥰
"Hallo Jacob, ich spreche regelmäßig mit wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeitenden darüber, wie man sich vom Konsum als Quelle von Lebendigkeit lösen kann, um mehr für eigene Ziele zu sparen, ohne Verzichtsgefühl. Viele nehmen daraus wertvolle Impulse mit. Lass uns gern vernetzen!"
October 29, 2025 at 12:39 PM
jbirken.bsky.social
V.a. dass da letztendlich reaktionäre Erzählmuster & Rollenbilder wiedergegeben werden, wie die Autorin im Artikel hier schreibt
"Man könnte fast meinen, die Bücher hätten ihr feministisches Moment. Doch der Schein trügt. Wiedergekäut werden die immer gleichen realitätsfernen weiblichen Vorstellungen von vermeintlich erstrebenswerter Männlichkeit, über die die Freude an der Menschlichkeit verloren geht. Der große, gut aussehende Held, unnahbar, in seinem Inneren tief verletzt, verliebt sich in das Mädchen, und selbst wenn er alle Teile seiner Seele verliert, bleibt seine Liebe bis zuletzt bestehen (wie in der Drachenreihe von Yarros)."
October 17, 2025 at 12:35 PM
jbirken.bsky.social
A Danganronpa fan after seeing the Danganronpa 2x2 announcement
The "Hide the Pain Harold" meme. An elderly man is sitting behind a notebook, holding a mug. He is looking towards the camera and smiling, but you see the DESPAIR in his eyes
October 15, 2025 at 7:37 AM
jbirken.bsky.social
Malibu Monet with 💥NEW💥 hat!
Still aus einer Simpsons-Folge. Auf einem Fernseher ist Werbung für die Malibu-Stacy-Puppe - dem Simpsons-Pendant zur Malibu Barbie - zu sehen, die jetzt mit einem neuen Hut verkauft wird
October 11, 2025 at 11:08 AM
jbirken.bsky.social
Hat das EU-Parlament eigentlich auch schon bestimmt, welche Sprachregelung fürderhin für das Wienermobile gelten wird
Photo des Wienermobils, eines Kraftfahrzeugs, das die Formen eines in einer Lache Senf oder vielleicht auf einer eher platten Brötchenhälfte liegenden Würstchens aufgreift
October 8, 2025 at 6:40 PM
jbirken.bsky.social
3D gaming boldly keeping the tradition of the 'Decisive Moment' alive while photography itself is strangled by deepfake slop in some dingy back alley
Screenshot from Infinity Nikki. Nikki, with blue hair and some kind of idol outfit, is posing to the left - there's a yellowish rectangle around her face indicating that a pic of her is being taken. Text to the right explains a new in-game photo function under the title "Capture the 'Decisive Moment'"
October 7, 2025 at 9:45 AM
jbirken.bsky.social
Le Chiffre from Casino Royale being smug & subtitled: "What you fail to see Mr Pope,"
October 2, 2025 at 12:32 PM
jbirken.bsky.social
Preparing a slide on the slopaganda authoritarian complex for a workshop on gen AI & facts & fiction I'll be running tomorrow (turns out the guy who made this bizarre 1980ies nostalgia clip recently was hired by Bukele as a governmental tech advisor in 2024)
A PowerPoint slide with the meme of a guy trying to explain a conspiracy as a background image. There are other images related to AI imagery and US fascism scattered across the slide and connected with red lines
September 28, 2025 at 12:08 PM
jbirken.bsky.social
Mmm das hat das Formular ja prima aus meinem Lebenslauf ausgelesen, ich merke mir aber "Yung University" trotzdem mal vor falls ich irgendwann Cloud-Rapper werden sollte
Screenshot von einem Eingabeformular. In den Feldern "Vorname *" und "Nachname *" wurden die Worte "Junge" "Universität" eingefügt
September 25, 2025 at 10:36 AM
jbirken.bsky.social
Is it possible to have one's art history degree revoked, dunno, like doctors or lawyers lose their licences
Screenshot from Infinity Nikki. Nikki is standing on a crag (actually the roof of a ruin) and looking down on a fog-covered landscape. There's a mountain range in the background and some weird mushroom-shaped cliffs emerging from the fog; everything is just different hues of blue. Nikki is wearing dark green and has placed her right hand on her hip.
September 18, 2025 at 8:45 AM
jbirken.bsky.social
Die eine richtige "direkte, nonverbale Rückmeldung" zu dieser Idee
Photo einer weinenden Olympiateilnehmerin, deren Pferd sich dem Springreiten verweigert. Das Pferd ist mit dem Schriftzug "Become Ungovernable" untertitelt.
September 15, 2025 at 12:54 PM
jbirken.bsky.social
So two years ago I published a book on continuities between still-life paintings and digital visualization in late capitalism using a lemon as a kind of running gag and NOW I find out that Hal Foster made the same joke ~30 years ago 👍🤡👍
Cover of my book, "Vom Pixelrealismus". The cover illustration is a 3D model of a lemon shown against the Rendering software's viewport grid "Operationally, however, digital and arthistorical protocols may not conflict, at least to the degree that both depend on iconographic data, or a logic of GIGO (computerese for the quality of data entered into a system: Garbage In, Garbage Out). In this respect the AHIP database might be named the Revenge of Iconography, or maybe just Business as Usual. (One can imagine the dissertation subjects: lemons in seventeenth-century Dutch still life, dogs in art, dicks in Twomby.)"
September 6, 2025 at 2:38 PM
jbirken.bsky.social
Skeet a PERFECT Album from the 90s that isn't Nirvana
The cover of My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless" from 1991, showing a very blurry photo of a guitar tinted pink
September 5, 2025 at 7:05 PM
jbirken.bsky.social
"Menschenwürde" ist wenn in Kunstausstellungen Exponate gezeigt werden müssen, die Einwander:innen als Verbrecher:innen darstellen 🙃 Aber hey dann gibt's wie in meiner Jugend vllt. wieder regelmäßig 'Polenwitze' im Fernsehen, aber dann nach Vorschrift statt nur fremdenfeindliches Standardprogramm
Ist die Bundesregierung im Rahmen ihrer Aufsichtspflicht jemals der Frage nachgegangen, ob die nach Ansicht der Fragesteller einseitige inhaltliche Ausrichtung des HKW auf Migranten als Opfer von Gewalt und Rassismus, aber nicht auch als Täter, die selbiges gegen Einheimische ausüben bzw. zeigen, vereinbar ist mit den Förderzielen des Bundes, der Neutralitätspflicht für staatlich mitfinanzierte und beaufsichtigte Institutionen und allgemein der im Grundgesetz (Artikel 1) verankerten Menschenwürde (bitte Antwort erläutern)?
August 29, 2025 at 9:50 AM
jbirken.bsky.social
Woraufhin mir dann wieder einfiel, dass diese Art von Memefizierung von politischen Entwicklungen & Kausalitäten selbst schon ein aktuelles Phänomen ist und man vllt auch mal darüber nachdenken sollte, was das über unser Verständnis von Politik sagt?
Das Meme wo ein Mann neben immer größeren freistehenden Platten kauert die den Domino-Effekt verdeutlichen sollen, beim kleinsten 'Dominostein' steht "a website to rate women on campus", beim größten ist ein Social-Media-Post, "The Capitol seems to be under the control of a man in a viking hat." Das gleiche Meme, nur steht unten "someone making a free game about their depression" und oben "the capitol building being stormed by a far right mob"
August 28, 2025 at 9:58 AM
jbirken.bsky.social
Als ich das vorhin zusammengerantet habe musste ich an das olle Underpants-Gnomes-Meme denken, und wie das zu den Interpretationen politischen Geschehens durch das Kommentariat passt, nur dass da zwischen zwei unzusammenhängenden Umständen ein Zusammenhang hergestellt und das ❓ ans Ende gesetzt wird
Still aus einer Southpark-Folge, wo ein Wichtel vor einer großen Schautafel steht. Auf der Tafel lesen wir: Phase 1 - Collect Underpants; Phase 2 - ?; Phase 3 - Profit.
August 28, 2025 at 9:58 AM
jbirken.bsky.social
This AI series generator seems like a good example, not only on a formal level of visual standardization - when I looked at the pitch, I was like "yeah sure have fun but who would even want to watch this", which in turn made me think that this is more about 'play' than arts www.showrunner.xyz /2
Photo of various cartoon figure, many (or maybe all of them?) representing celebrities like Trump, Obama and Zuckerberg or pop culture characters like the Terminator T-800. All have a weirdly vacant stare
August 27, 2025 at 10:08 AM