Visualizing Emotions - Miniconference 2014

Was sind Emotionen, wie kann man sie messen und darstellen? Damit beschäftigten sich studentische Gruppen der FH Potsdam im interdisziplinären Kurs »Emotionen sichtbar machen« unter der Leitung von Marian Dörk und Tobias Schröder.

What are emotions? How can they be measured and represented? Student groups of the FH Potsdam interdisciplinary course "making emotions visible" ("Emotionen sichtbar machen") under the direction of Marian Dörk and Tobias Schröder focus on these questions and will present their reseach outcomes on the 29. of October, 2014.

The interest in emotions is reawakened in the 21st century: nowadays, individual self-realization and authenticity are regarded as highest values. In politics, efforts were made to supplement traditional welfare indicators like the gross domestic product by affective indicators such as subjective happiness and life satisfaction. In many scientific disciplines, the idea of rationality and feelings as opposed phenomena, which is deeply anchored in Western philosophy, has become more and more obsolete.

In our interdisciplinary course „Visualizing Emotions“ we dealt with the question what emotions are and mean to us and how they can be measured. We developed a cross-disciplinary understanding of emotion and put it in relation to the design of communication contexts, interactive systems, structural environments and social-transformation processes. We also familiarized ourselves with cutting-edge approaches to visualization and interpretation of information spaces. Finally, we developed research projects in small interdisciplinary groups, whose content was reflected by the interests and specializations of the participating students.