An Orderly Mess

Messiness is a familiar condition - it forms the background of our daily life and of society. While we normally take it for granted it is also an expression of resilience against disorder that threatens to take over once we face forces beyond our control. I will focus on the temporal and spatial dimensions in which messiness becomes apparent today: broken time lines and fragmented spaces. Messiness is framed by a blurring of the world orderings inherited from modernity. Against the backdrop of rapid computerization and the rise of algorithms we may find ourselves again in a phase of transition towards new ways of world ordering. What would it entail, especially for the social sciences?

Speaker: Dr. Helga Nowotny, European Research Council