Michiel Schwarz  

Michiel Schwarz

Biographical background

Michiel Schwarz (1956) is an independent researcher, consultant, editor and writer on contemporary technological culture, based in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Among other things he is currently senior advisor to the Netherlands Design Institute, and part of the programme team for its fifth Doors of Perception conference on ‘Play’. In 1996 he co chaired and programmed Doors 4 on ‘Speed’. He is director of Foundation 567, based in Amsterdam, a non-profit organisation, created to develop cultural and media R&D projects, bridging the divide between scholarly thinking and the world of arts & media. His current activities include the completion of a major book of essays and photography, Speed - Visions of an Accelerated Age (coinciding with exhibitions on ‘Speed’ at The Photographers’ Gallery and the Whitechapel Art Gallery -curated by Jeremy Millar- opening in London in September 1998) and the scenario development of the main ‘story lines’ for the Netherlands’ pavilion at the 2000 World Expo at Hannover.

Trained in the history and sociology of science and physics at the University of Sussex, England, he gained a doctorate in philosophy and sociology of technology from the University of London. Since 1980 Dr. Schwarz has worked as an independent consultant and researcher on issues of technology and culture for academic, governmental and cultural organisations, including the Science Policy Research Unit (Sussex, England), the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (Austria), the University of Amsterdam, and the Netherlands Advisory Council on Science and Technology Policy. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he worked as a freelance science journalist in the Netherlands and Britain. He has acted as a research consultant for television, film and radio productions. Michiel Schwarz was initiator, programme director and series editor of the Technological Culture series of cultural events, books and media projects of the Amsterdam-based De Balie centre for culture and politics (1987-94). During 1994 and 1995 he was consultant director of the Mass Culture Workshop at Fabrica, the arts and communications research centre of the Benetton Group in northern Italy. He has published extensively in journals, books and magazines on contemporary social and cultural issues of technology, environment, social development and globalization.

Books by Michiel Schwarz:

  • The Exploitation of Space (ed. with Paul Stares; London, Butterworth, 1985)

  • De Technologische Cultuur (‘The Technological Culture’, ed. with Rein Jansma; Amsterdam, Uitgeverij De Balie/S.Franke, 1989).

  • Divided We Stand - Redefining politics, technology and social choice (with Michael Thompson; London, Harvester-Wheatsheaf; and Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990).

  • Speed - Visions of an Accelerated Age (with Jeremy Millar; London, Whitechapel Art Gallery/The Photographers’ Gallery in association with the Netherlands Design Institute, 1998).

Other recent publications include :

  • De vooruitgang - Wonderen van de technologische toekomst (‘Progress - The Wonders of The Technological Future’), published in Wereldtentoonstellingen (‘World’s Exhibitions’, Amstelveen, KVGO, 1991). ‘The Technological Culture - Opening the Political and Public Debate’ , published in Science and Culture in Europe, ed. J. Durant and J. Gregory (London, The Science Museum, 1993).

  • Zingeving in een technologische cultuur, (Making Sense in a Technological Culture’) in R. in ‘t Veld, H. de Bruijn, M. Lips (samenstelling), Toekomsten voor het funderend onderwijs (‘Futures for Primary Education’; Den Haag, SDU, 1996).

  • The Technological Culture, in H. Nowotny and H. Taschwer (eds), The Sociology of Science (Cheltenham, Elgar Publishing, 1996).

  • Contouren van de risicomaatschappij, (‘Contours of the Risk Society’; with M. Hajer) in: Ulrich Beck, De wereld als risicomaatschappij - Essays over de ecologische crisis en de politiek van de vooruitgang (‘The World as Risk Society’) edited by Maarten Hajer en Michiel Schwarz (Amsterdam, Uitgeverij De Balie, 1997).

  • De Snelheidscultuur (‘The Culture of Speed’), Informatie en Informatiebeleid, jrg.15, nr.1 (1997).

  • Maximum Snelheid? (‘Maximum Speed’), in V. Frissen en H. te Molder (eds), Van Forum tot Supermarkt? De veranderende betekenis van de informatievoorziening voor gebruikers (Leuven, Acco Uitgeverij, 1998).
Contact mschwarz@xs4all.nl
 

updated 25-5-1998
desk@design-inst.nl