Paper short abstract:

The talk explores religious practices as media practices which have shaped not only modern media but also media theory.

Paper long abstract:

Media are not only objects, techniques, devices or infrastructures that can be observed not only by media scholars – thinking itself is determined by its media, writing as much as machine learning. Media philosophy thus turns on one hand to aesthetic practices to explore how different techniques, tools, materials, architectures etc. are reflected in art (Busch, Mersch, Bal), on the other hand to technical operations like feedback-loops as a form of thinking – reflection is then considered to be based in (cultural) techniques (Kittler, Siegert, Hansen, Hayles). The talk proposes a media theoretical reading of religious practices, looking for „blind spots“ of both models paying attention to the specificity of religious „non-sovereign“ practices, which cannot be reduced to intentional, „active“ models of practice (Agamben), neither to mechanical processes or automatisms (Winkler), exploring heteronomous concepts of media practice connected to "cultural techniques" (Siegert, Krämer), "agency" (Latour) or"gesture" (Flusser).