Adorno and the Media

From the perspective of media theory Theodor W. Adorno is one of the most ambivalent figures of the 20th century. His work as a music critic at a young age was already reaching a huge public.

Since the 1940s, he and Max Horkheimer used the concept of »culture industry« to analyze the logic of mediatized culture and education. Adorno, who constantly emphasized and theorized the notion of mediation and mediality, was one of the most recognizable media intellectuals of his time. As a philosopher and sociologist he discussed the state of the public sphere and the individual under the conditions of industrialized media production. He did this in the form of media interventions, mainly interviews and lectures, which now have legendary status.

As relentlessly »negative« as Adorno's analyzes were, he nonetheless dealt in a practical-critical register with the world of the media, broadcasting and television, and knew how to use such mediums for the project of critical theory.

In contemporary debates, Adorno's sometimes apocalyptic tone has regained influence. With the spread of fake news, big data, social media and digital populism, critical theory once again serves as an important and productive reference for philosophically informed and sociologically substantiated media critique.

The conference, fifty years after Adorno's death, focuses on three topics:

• Adorno's ambivalent attitude to the dangers and potentials of modern media
• The impact of Adorno's theory in the media theoretical approaches of the last several decades
• The relevance of Adorno's critical theory in the contemporary critique of digital culture

The exhibition »Adorno and the Media«, which was organized parallel with the conference, displays a series of artistic works dealing with the same topics. In addition to the question of the impact of Adorno's media criticism and analysis of society in today's context, the participating artists deal with the representation and reception of Theodor W. Adorno's theory in international cultural and media production since the 1950's to the present.