Dr. Johannes Bennke
Media Theory / Media Philosophy
Image Philosophy
Media Ethics
Philosophy of Technology
Media of Verification
Online Governance
Theory of the Archive
Aesthetics
Crypto Art
CV
Johannes Bennke is a Post-Doc Fellow at The Program of Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies at Bar-Ilan University. His research project “Forever on the Blockchain: Making Decentralized Data” is concerned with the future of the archive in Web3 and its aesthetics.
From 2021 to 2023 I was a Post-Doc Fellow of the Minerva Foundation of the Max Planck Society at The Smart Family Institute for Communications at the Dept. of Communication and Journalism at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem where I did research on the media theory and media cultural history of blockchain (Media of Verification. From Seals and Scribes to Blockchain).
In my current research project, I analyze media practices used for archival purposes in Web3. From a media-theoretical and media-philosophical perspective, I focus on the materiality and mediality of such archives to describe the ethical and epistemological implications of blockchain as a medium. By analyzing cryptoart and curatorial practices that reflect Web3 and the metaverse as archive, I also aim to investigate the economic logic underlying (im)material cultural heritage.
In 2021 I submitted my dissertation at the Center of Excellence Media Anthropology at Bauhaus-University Weimar. My dissertation Obliteration. For a Particular Media Philosophy after Emmanuel Levinas deals with the aesthetic, image and media philosophical thinking in the work of Emmanuel Levinas. Here, obliteration is developed as a key media philosophical concept of difference for an epistemology of forgetting and non-knowledge. With its forms of deletion and destruction it becomes a fundamental condition of creativity, renewal and future oriented particular practices. My dissertation was awarded as one of the best media studies publications in 2023 and is available in Open-Access at transcript.
I am speaker of the Working Group Media Philosophy of the German Society of Medua Studies (GfM). Together with Prof. Dr. Markus Rautzenberg (Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen) and Prof. Dr. Mirjam Schaub (University of Applied Science, Hamburg) we organize a series of workshops in 2025 and 2026 with the topic: “Why media philosophy today?” Also, I am “Associate PNB Fellow” at the Postdoc Network Brandenburg and an associate at the Selma-Stern-Centre for Jewish Studies Berlin Brandenburg.
Publications
Monographies
Johannes Bennke: Obliteration. Für eine partikulare Medienphilosophie nach Emmanuel Levinas, Bielefeld: transcript 2023.
https://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-6791-2/obliteration/
Johannes Bennke: Building Images. Reconstruction of the Neues Museum Berlin. Zurich: intercom Verlag 2021.
Edited Volumes
Navigationen, Vol. 25, Nr. 1 (2025): Media Cultures of Value? Asset Logics, Network Sovereignty, and Art in Web3. Guest editor with Markus Rautzenberg, Mirjam Schaub [forthcoming].
Johannes Bennke, Dieter Mersch (Eds.): Levinas und die Künste. Bielefeld: transcript 2024.
communication +1, Vol. 10 (2023): Media of Verification. Guest editor.
Johannes Bennke, Virgil Brower (Eds.): Internationales Jahrbuch für Medienphilosophie, Band 7, Mediality/Theology/Religion. Berlin: de Gruyter 2021.
Johannes Bennke, Johanna Seifert, Martin Siegler, Christina Terberl (Eds.): Das Mitsein der Medien. Prekäre Koexistenzen von Menschen, Maschinen und Algorithmen. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink Verlag 2018.
Articles
„Media of Verification: An Epistemological Framework for Trust in a Digital Society”. In: communication+1, Vol. 10 (2023).
„Media of Verification: An Introduction”. In: communication+1, Vol. 10 (2023).
„Levinas and Work on the Social”, in: LSMU Akademine leidyba (Ed.): Other and Being Other with Epilepsy: Challenges for Psychosocial Consulting. Kaunas: LSMU Akademine leidyba 2023, pp. 15-21.
„Vorbemerkungen zu einer Logik des Digitalen. Obfuskation in Codes, Kunst
und Datenvisualisierung“. In: Oliver Ruf, Lars C. Grabbe (Eds.): Technik-Ästhetik. Zur
materialen und rezeptiven Systematisierung techno-ästhetischer Realität.
Bielefeld: transcript 2022, pp. 335-360.
Johannes Bennke, Amit Pinchevski: „Media, Mediation, Mediality“, in: communication +1, Vol. 9 (2022).
„Das Bilderverbot in der Ästhetik von Emmanuel Levinas“. In: Beniamino Fortis (Ed.): Bild und Idol. Perspektiven aus Philosophie und jüdischem Denken. Berlin: Peter Lang 2022, pp. 157-184.
Johannes Bennke, Virgil Brower: „Mediality/Theology/Religion. Aspects of a Singular Encounter“. In: Thems. (Eds.): Internationales Jahrbuch für Medienphilosophie, Band 7, Medialität/Theologie/Religion. Berlin: de Gruyter 2021, pp. 13–28.
„Genesis and Medium of Media Philosophy”. In: Ação Midiática Vol. 7 (2019), https://revistas.ufpr.br/acaomidiatica/article/view/67751/39339.
„Vorwort“. In: Emmanuel Levinas: Die Obliteration. Gespräch mit Françoise Armengaud über das Werk von Sacha Sosno. Zürich/Berlin, diaphanes 2019, pp. 7–28.
„Preface“. In: Emmanuel Levinas: On Obliteration. An Interview with Françoise Armengaud concerning the Work of Sacha Sosno. Transl. by Brian Alkire, University of Chicago Press 2019, pp. 7–26.
„Testimonial Image Practices as a Politics of Aesthetics after Levinas“. In: Religions Vol. 9, Nr. 12 (2019), https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/levinas.
„Ikonisches Nachleben. Zur Einzelausstellung „Found Fragments“ von James Benning in der Galerie Neugerriemschneider, 6.2.-3.3.2018“. In: texte zur kunst, June 2018, Nr. 110, pp. 212–215.
„Die Erschütterung des Humanen. Das Erbe Robert Gardners und das Sensory Ethnography Lab“. In: Cargo, Nr. 30 (2016), pp. 54-62.
„Zur Ethik des Bildes bei Emmanuel Lévinas“. In: figurationen. gender literatur kunst: Visuelles Denken/Visual Thinking, ed. by Dieter Mersch, No. 1 (2016), pp. 93-114.
Awards and Prizes
2023, Open Library Medienwissenschaft (OLM). Dissertation selected by an editorial board for Open Access publication at transcript.
2021–2023, Post-Doc Fellow of the Minerva Foundation of the Max-Planck-Society at The Smart Family Institute of Communications at the Dept. of Communication and Journalism at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Host supervisor: Prof. Dr. Amit Pinchevski.
2021, PhD Fellow, doctoral study program „Philosophy of Religion“ in the Theology and Contemporary Culture Research Group at the Protestant Theological Faculty, supervisor: Dr. František Štěch.
2020, Ursula Lachnit-Fixson Scholarship of the Selma-Stern-Center for
Jewish Studies Berlin/Brandenburg, Humboldt University Berlin, Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Micha Brumlik.
2019, Bauhaus-Finalizing-Grant.
2016, ERASMUS + Scholarship, Teaching abroad, Charles University Prague.
2015–2019, PhD Scholarship, Center of Excellence Media Anthropology,
Bauhaus-University Weimar, Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Lorenz Engell, Prof. Dr. Dieter Mersch (ZHdK, Zurich).
2014, Best Master Thesis at the Design Department of the University of Applied Science Potsdam.
2009–2010, ERASMUS Scholarship, Cinéma et audiovisuel, Littérature comparée, Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3.
2009–2014, Student Scholarship, Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst e.V.
Last Updated Date : 05/12/2024
