In times of resurgence of ultra-nationalistic and xenophobic tendencies across Europe, education and awareness-raising for all age groups about the history of the Holocaust are of paramount for agency and civil engagement. Stefan Sonvilla-Weiss examines commemorative culture and its transformation towards interactive and participatory experiences through a novel form of visitor engagement at the Mauthausen memorial visiting center. This unique space from an arts-based and media research project builds on human-centered design and individual and collective experiences of contributing to a living memory culture.
Biografie
Stefan Sonvilla-Weiss, PhD, is Professor of communication and education technologies in Visual Culture and study programme director of ePedagogy Design Visual Knowledge Building at Aalto University / School of Art and Design Helsinki. He coined the term Visual Knowledge Building, referring to a visualization process of interconnected models of distributed socio-cultural encoded data representations and simulations that are structured and contextualized by a learning community. In his research he tries to find answers to how real and virtual space interactions can generate novel forms of communicative, creative and social practices in global connected communities.§The last 20 years he worked as art and design teacher, media artist, graphic designer, author, multimedia-developer and university teacher. He is also serving as expert advisor and reviewer for a number of scientific and research bodies, including the European Commission and he has received several honors and scholarships. His international activities as speaker, lecturer, invited scholar and researcher brought him to many institutions around the world, for example Oxford University Internet Institute, Seoul National University Design Talks, National Institute of Multimedia Education Tokyo, University of the Arts London, K.U. Leuven, University Hamburg, Bilgi University Istanbul, San Francisco de Quito University.
