The Center for Media and Interactivity (ZMI) at Justus Liebig University (JLU) offers the Giessen award for scholarly presentation and lecture performance for the second time in 2011, the International Year of Chemistry. Researchers/academics from any discipline and lecture performers are invited to apply and participate in the competition. On September 17, 2011, a jury consisting of distinguished representatives of the fields of science and art will determine the award winners in the public finals. Inspired by the history of Justus Liebig University, in the International Year of Chemistry 2011, Performing Science will be about new forms of experimental lecturing. The competition is under the direction of Prof. Heiner Goebbels, Prof. Dr. Henning Lobin, Dr. Sibylle Peters and Sabine Heymann.
The history of knowledge presentation is characterized by the tension between scholarly communication and public spectacle. Experimental lecturing is associated with the insight that the presentation of knowledge interacts with research: Although experimental lecturing was first criticized for not being scientific, it finally played a central role in the development of modern experimental sciences.
Today the forms of public knowledge presentation are undergoing new changes: Through the use of new media the relations between showing and telling, presenter and audience, action and evidence are being restructured. For instance, the lecture performance has emerged as a new format at the interface between art and science. Recorded as a video and put on the Web, today’s scholarly presentations take the shape of performances more than ever. At the same time, the relationship between science and society is changing, too. On the way to “Science 2.0,” sciences face the task of involving society in research processes more than before. Knowledge transfer thus becomes a crucial issue.
Against this background, Performing Science 2011 raises a variety of questions: What are the characteristic features of experimental knowledge presentations today? How do experimental presentation forms connect with the presentation of socially relevant research?
