Dirk von Gehlen

The context in which citations appear represents one of the most important and fundamental questions on the ethical and cultural valuation, defence, and treatment of issues surrounding “copying and quoting” – which are the same thing for Dirk von Gehlen, the Social Media and Innovation editorial head at the Süddeutsche Zeitung and author of Mashup: Lob der Kopie (Mash-up: In praise of copying; Suhrkamp Verlag, 2011). In his lecture, the co-founder of the new Mash-Up Museum will expand on themes covered in his book – new experimental and participatory reutilisation, financing, and aesthetic methods, which could represent a way out of the upcoming narrowing within digital cultural spaces. Will the creative process in the digital world itself become a work of art and a funding instrument?

Dirk von Gehlen is the director of the Social Media and Innovation department at the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Following his studies at the Deutsche Journalistenschule and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, he began in 2002 as Chief Editor of the online magazine jetzt.de, which was honoured with the Grimme Online Award in 2006 under his leadership. In 2009, von Gehlen lectured for the Communication Studies department at the Universität Hohenheim. In his book Mashup (Suhrkamp, 2011), von Gehlen discusses various issues of copying on the Internet and attempts to sort and classify the act of copying within the context of cultural history and sociology.