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Media of the Future
Last Updated: 2026-06-03 00:07:47
Abstract
This course explores how media shape our experience of space, time, and futurity across historical and contemporary contexts. Combining media-theoretical and post-phenomenological approaches with close analyses of literary and artistic works, we examine how different media imagine future technologies and structure our orientation toward what is to come.
Objective
Providing students with an understanding of how contemporary media technologies shape and mediate how we experience the world. Enabling students to confidently evaluate and discuss different art and media forms. Encouraging students to apply a media-theoretical perspective to their own scientific or creative work.
Content
Media shape how we inhabit space and time—not only in the digital age, but throughout the history of technology. Photography, for example, captures moments from the past and brings them into the present, while radio enables listeners in different locations to share a common temporal experience. Media also play a crucial role in how we relate to and imagine the future. This seminar explores this connection between media and futurity from two complementary perspectives. On the one hand, we examine how artistic media imagine the future of media themselves. With a focus on science fiction (but not limited to it), we analyze how speculative worlds present “future media”: How do fictional technologies create speculative futures, and how do they influence actual innovation? How do these speculative devices reflect on the “old” media through which they are produced? On the other hand, we address the more abstract question of how contemporary media environments shape our orientation toward the future. Drawing on philosophy of technology, including post-phenomenological approaches, we investigate how media structure temporal experience: Which horizons do they open, defer, or constrain? The course combines theoretical readings with the analysis of novels, short stories, films, series, and music.
General Information
- Language
- English
- Levels
- DS , MSC
Examination
- Type
- graded semester performance
Registration & Places
- Max Places
- 30
Course Components
| Type | Title | Time & Place | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| seminar | Media of the Future | No time listed | 2 h weekly |
Offered In
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Science in Perspective (In “Science in Perspective”-courses students learn to reflect on ETH’s STEM subjects from the perspective of humanities, political and social sciences. Only the courses listed below will be recognized as "Science in Perspective" courses.)
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Type A: Enhancement of Reflection Competence (SiP courses are recommended for bachelor students after their first-year examination and for all master- or doctoral students. All SiP courses are listed in Type A. Courses listed under Type B are only recommendations for enrollment for specific departments.)
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