The renowned mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot was once asked what had led to his great success. Mandelbrot responded: “When I seek, I look, look, look, and play with pictures. One look at a picture is like one reading on a scientific instrument. One is never enough.” (Mandelbrot, The Fractalist, 2014)
Thus, for Mandelbrot exact observations and playful experimentation are essential, as the combination of these two can lead - literally - to new ways of seeing the world. Mandelbrot's "Fractal Geometry" is an example par excellence of how “moving” images (videos) can effectively reveal self-similarity of geometric patterns like no other medium.

What do science, education and video have to do with each other? Ever since the very beginning of film in the early 20thcentury, science, film and education have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship. Each contributed in its own way to the production of knowledge and to progress in the endeavors of the other.

Sometimes, pictures can change everything.

We had just returned from our field productions in Guatemala and Nigeria with some of our local and Swiss research colleagues, where we tried to capture their research into social conflict on camera. Once the film stills from our co-production process of “Inequality and Conflict – Beyond us and Them” were printed on paper and lying on a table in the Swiss National Science Foundation’s Headquarters in Bern, Switzerland, the discussions of our researchers started to shift fundamentally. The previous in-depth hour-long discussions about the distinction of certain terminologies seemed less critical for the research documentary. Our core team from the Graduate Institute Geneva, ETH Zurich and University of Lausanne described the filmstills, almost with a notion of disbelieve, as “powerful” and “strong”

Had the immense pleasure to mentor a group of excellent AI and robot scientists to create some brainstorming innovative media ideas for science communication. For the Silbersalz Science & Media Festival 2021.

Video sollte in der akademischen Welt ein höherer Stellenwert eingeräumt werden. Die schriftliche wissenschaftliche Publikation ist bisher das zentrale Medium. Video aber bleibt umstritten. Video muss sich an der schriftlichen wissenschaftlichen Publikation messen lassen muss – also an den Maßstäben einer anderen Sprache mit ganz anderen und sehr detailliert definierten Qualitätskriterien. Video als Kommunikationsform wirkt daher fast wie eine Bedrohung, weil viele Fragen nicht geklärt sind. Diesen großen Diskurs kennen wir seit den Anfängen des Wissenschaftsfilms in den frühen 1920er-Jahren. Wie kann Video formal den Stellenwert einer wissenschaftlichen Publikation erreichen, zum Beispiel durch Standards oder Peer Review? Diese Diskussion müssen wir führen und das fordere ich auch in meiner Keynote. Wir müssen eine Community gründen, die Video als Publikationsformat in der Wissenschaft etabliert und gemeinsam erarbeitet, wie das funktionieren kann.

Vollversion des Skype-Interviews mit der Mediendesignerin und Medienforscherin an der ETH Zürich Dr. Jeanine Reutemann. Pandemic Talk über das Thema Kommunikation (in) der Wissenschaft, Public Science Communication, Wissenschaftsfilm und die Potentiale von Video als Medium im Forschungsalltag. Unterschied in der Verwendung von Formaten wie 360-Grad-Video und Fixed-Frame (klassisches Video). Produktionserfahrungen aus Projekten mit Nachhaltigkeitsbezug und Change-Communication.

Action script for the self-produced keynote with three different characters arguing about common point of views of science, media and society communication

The current crisis of media truth hits at a time when science clearly shows major threats to the web of life on earth. Audiovisual media is crucial in negotiating between science, false beliefs and the unknown.

Theorie trifft auf Praxis; Wissenschaft und Film

VR360 videos für forschendes Lernen. Beispiele aus der angewandten Praxis der Leiden University NL.

Keynote über die Performanz im Digitalen; Lehrvideos als Fenster in die Welt der Lehrenden

We've designed a massive role play game about the future, climate change, robopocalypse, immortality and space travel from scratch. Mitigation, adaptation, investment in AI robots or basic research? Dependent on the choices of the different countries, the future of our planet drastically changes over the next 100 years. Facilitated at Brave New World conference in Leiden.