The project was borne out of the observation that an increasingly significant number of socially relevant structures have been arising beyond the realm of conscious planning. This holds true for technical developments as it does for the process of general cultural evolution. The examples are manifold: alongside traditional forms of mass media, the Internet has grown to reach immensely distributed user activity; within companies, hierarchies are being replaced by informal, cooperative structures; and ad hoc networks developed by computer scientists simulate the market model and negotiate the allocation of resources independently.

Various top-down approaches that refer to central, conscientious authorities failed fundamentally in providing an explanation. But where else could answers be found? Is it possible to model mechanisms of structure development bottom-up? The main theme of the Research Training Group is ‘automatisms.’ Automatisms often come into being wherever planning is absent. Essential here is the development model, the question as to how structures form in automated processes.

Until now, automatisms have been researched in various disciplines, largely independent of each other. Psychological approaches describe automatisms as behavioral patterns that economize by reducing the need for conscious decision-making, but also tend towards rigidity and the perpetuation of stereotypes. Sociological theories have analyzed automatisms as a habit-forming process. Emphasized here is its regulative and technical nature; automatisms appear as a formation. Perceptual and Gestalt theoreticians have demonstrated that the fundamental mechanisms of perception function in the same way as automatisms do; in the field of semiotics, the focus of interest lies in the processes of schema formation.

These and various similar approaches are what the Research Training Group would like to draw upon, process, and systematize. The program’s end objective is, however, to go above and beyond the individual theories and arrive at a systematic, comprehensive approach. Doing so would mean pioneering new territory and require innovation. Through interdisciplinary comparison, the project seeks to establish a structured view of automated processes. By means of an interdisciplinary methodology, it will become possible to expound the similarities and differences of various basic theories, as well as reflect upon the potential and limitations of transferring concepts across fields of study. Participants of the Research Training Group have already produced extensive preliminary work on this topic.

The project’s goal is to develop the concept of automatisms’ viability such that it might prove useful in analyzing concrete technical, medial, and cultural phenomena in a differentiated, coherent, and operationalizable manner.