The Jülich Brain Atlas and the “Telematic Society”

“Between Image and Language – Thinking in the Telematic Society” is the title of the lecture by Professor Katrin Amunts on Tuesday, November 25, 2025, at the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts in Düsseldorf. The background is the utopia of a “telematic society,” conceived by media philosopher Vilém Flusser more than forty years ago. In such a society, human and technical communication systems are inseparably intertwined. According to this utopian vision, a world so thoroughly digitalized would itself digitalize human thought and radically transform the symbols of human exchange.

In her lecture, Katrin Amunts illustrates, using the example of the “Jülich Brain Atlas,” how digital technologies transform both human thinking and the research process itself. The subsequent discussion features contributions from media archaeologist Professor Siegfried Zielinski and author Marion Poschmann, who will add their observations and ideas.

The lecture is part of the Academy’s annual exhibition program, which, under the title “Überzeichnung” (“Overdrawing”), explores the medium of drawing in science and art. The Cécile and Oskar Vogt Institute for Brain Research in Düsseldorf, directed by Katrin Amunts, has contributed historical brain mappings by Oskar Vogt, current three-dimensional atlas mappings, and automatic cell labeling using the AI method CellDetection.

The event begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Academy’s headquarters, Palmenstraße 16, 40217 Düsseldorf. Registration: anmeldung@awk.nrw.de .