PACITA Conference

1) The venue, the food and the entertainment were brilliant. However, one participant I talked to observed that to focus on these issues is not the goal of a conference. The  “Neue Mälzerei” and the “Umweltforum” add atmosphere to TA talks. And I liked the dancing on Thursday evening. Let’s rock TA.

2) Before the conference there was a workshop on OpenTA, an Internet platform of NTA (Netzwerk TA), which was a nice warm-up for the conference and gave me insights into the possible use of www to connect among TA practitioners and especially to have a platform for news and publications.

3) The keynotes by Naomi Oreskes and Roger Pielke were interesting but caught up in a very US American context. For me they were all about identifying the bad guys.

4) My favourite talk was by Armin Grunwald about a hermeneutic approach toward prospective TA. He argued that hermeneutics are the only way to deal with a maximum of openness with respect to foresight and that it enables us to learn more about our present ideas about the future and possibilities to act.

5) Virgil Rerimassie gave talks about engaging politicians with respect to the issue of synthetic biology. Although both talks were rather similar I enjoyed the positive rhetoric and the commitment.

6) The poster presentation was a bit weird and too short for my taste. However, the atmosphere of the Umweltforum saved that one, too.

7) The organizing team was extremely helpful and also guarantee a smooth process and environment for the conference.

8) Alexander Bogner retold the story of problematic aspects of early engagement with technologies, not only in the face of the Collingridge dilemma, but with respect to participatory approaches, that might lack the desired outputs of legitimization and gain of additional knowledge.

9) As regards methods, the conference was a treasure chest, starting from ITA’s CIVISTI and going as far as the use of narrative design objects.

10) However, I experienced some repetitions and redundancies on the conference with what I knew before and with what I have heard on other conferences. I think this means, when I selected the talks that I went to, I did not leave my comfort zone. On the other hand: it was a comfortable conference.