Hello, I am Dan.
ReseaRcher / Developer / Somewhere between Science and Art
I’m into humanities with a background in software engineering, loving lasagne and having an utterly bad sense of humor. I prefer to keep learning, continue challenging myself, and do interesting things that matter.
My natural curiosity drives me to pursue many interests, hobbies and creative endeavors. I’m a fast learner, able to pick up new skills and juggle different projects and tasks with relative ease. I have a passion for everything that blinks and overcomes gravity, yet I like to develop expertise in a number of areas over the course of my life and work.
I’m a teamplayer with a strong sense for general awareness and empathy. I’m able to inspire and at my best when I’m sharing my thoughts and creative expressions with others in a team of open minded people.
Work Experience
I currently work as professor for educational science with focus on general media education at Bielefeld University where I teach about the philosophy of education, Internet- and critical code studies linked to media literacy and do research on the social implications of source code and algorithmic systems. I regularly publish my findings and give talks on these topics. In addition to this commitment, I work as consultant with selected clients focussing on digital literacy and information security.
From 2018 to 2022, I worked as assistant professor for educational science with focus on education in the digital world at the university of Magdeburg. Before, I worked there as research assistant at the chair of Winfried Marotzki doing my PhD on Bildung and the structural change of public sphere in the light of digital mediality.
From 2004 to 2016, I worked as a full stack developer together with different European companies and various ecommerce systems such as osCommerce, xt:Commerce and later also Magento. In addition to setting up and adapting these systems to customer requirements, I focused on modules to improve the workflow at the backend, ensure a secure web infrastructure and database optimization. I also developed interfaces to external services, such as the transfer of information and processes to CRM or ERP systems provided by Kadis or SAP.
It is always important to me to understand the social aspects of our digital world not as opposed to technology, but as intertwined.
selected publications
Verständig, D. (2023). Vom Prinzip der Universalität zur Unberechenbarkeit des Sozialen. In S. Aßmann & N. Ricken (Hrsg.), Bildung und Digitalität Analysen – Diskurse – Perspektiven (S. 385–402). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-30766-0_14
Verständig, D. (2021). Critical Data Studies and Data Science in Higher Education: An interdisciplinary and explorative approach towards a critical data literacy. Seminar.net, 17(2). https://doi.org/10.7577/seminar.4397
Verständig, D. (2020). Nothing to see? – How to address algorithms and their impact on the perception of the world. In: Kergel, D.; Heidkamp, B.; Arnett C. R. & Mancino, S. (Eds.), Communication and Learning in an Age of Digital Transformation. Routledge. 220–237.
Verständig, D. (2020). Über den Widerstand zu coding publics – Einige Randnotizen für die Konzeption von Bildung in einer digitalen Welt. In Bettinger, P.; Dander, V.; Hebert, E.; Leineweber C. & Rummler, K. (Eds.), Digitalisierung – Subjekt – Bildung. Verlag Barbara Budrich.
Verständig, D. (2019). Zwischen Bias und Diversität – Bildung und Diversity im Kontext algorithmischer Strukturen. In: Angenent, H.; Kergel, D. & Heidkamp, B. (Eds.), Digital Diversity. Bildung und Lernen im Kontext gesellschaftlicher Transformationen. Springer VS. 61–82.
Marotzki, W., Holze, J. & Verständig, D. (2014). Analyzing Virtual Data. In: Flick, U. (Ed.), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis. Sage Publishing. 250–264.
selected talks
Beauty and the Biased: How Content Regulation on TikTok Diminishes Diversity and What Media Education Can Do About It. Paper presented at the ECER 2023, Glasgow, Scotland. 25th September 2023.
Executing Education: On coding literacy and digital media cultures. Keynote: From Rechnerkunde to Digitalkunde – Talks on K-12 Computing Education Philosophy. Heinz Nixdorf Forum, Paderborn, Germany. 5th October 2022.
Coding as Creative-Aesthetical and Political Expression. Collab meeting with colleagues from Music, Communication and Technologies (MCT) at the NTNU Trondheim, Norway. 10th December 2019.
Code, Action and Speech: Between Certainty and Risk in Uncertain Environments. Long Paper Submission at the ECER 2019. Network 13: Philosophy of Education. Hamburg, Germany. 3rd September 2019.
Nothing to see? – How to address algorithmic architectures and their impact on the perception of the world. Paper presented at the ECER 2018, Bolzano, Italy. 5th September 2018.
What the hack? – Fostering diversity through tinkering with algorithms and digital tools. Paper presented at the ECER 2018. Network 13: Philosophy of Education. Bolzano, Italy. 4th September 2018.
From resistance to coding publics. GERA-Congress 2018 in the working group on current challenges of digitization for processes of informal education. University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. 20th March 2018.
The order of data – How we define ourselves by digital data and how not. #tech4social-meetup in Leipzig, Germany. 25th January 2018.
Zero-level-digital divide – regulation and prioritization as media-educational challenges. Paper presented at the ECER 2015, in Budapest, Hungary. 8th September 2015.
some cgi / gen art
The CGI represents some older work being created with Maxon Cinema4D, the generative art is the result of work with TouchDesigner and Processing. The source code can be found on my GitHub or OpenProcessing.
About this site
pixelspace.org has been around for more than twenty years now. Originally founded by Sebastian, the goal at that time was to present and exchange digital works and to promote inspiration of all kinds. After many different attempts, we have now arrived at a time when you don’t actually have to host your own portfolio and the exchange of information can be easily arranged via countless services.
Then why own a website?
Because this page is part of the story of friends and therefore has a high symbolic value. Even if many things have changed over the course of time, or perhaps precisely because of this, it is particularly important to me to continue the original idea of this site.
There is also another important aspect: only on your own webspace, you can experience a largely unrestricted freedom of action and a sense of autonomy. In addition, it cannot be wrong to have a backup of all data on your own hard drive. I am referring to a fundamental principle of the IndieWeb, whose idea I find particularly important against the background of recent developments around the social web and commercial interactions.
After some versions of pixelspace have already been implemented over the last couple of years, the latest desired framework of choice was WordPress. In addition to the solid and highly efficient code base, the open source CMS is also an ideal playground for creating and integrating plugins. The framework itself takes over a large part of the tasks, which is excellent, because it allows you to focus on the content and to write exciting texts such as this one.