Einreichungen Fotowettbewerb 2021
Ria-Maria Adams - Institut für Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie
Titel: Brothers discovering new paths of a national park in Finnish Lapland
This image shows two brothers trying to find a path through the swampland of the national park of “Pyhä-Luosto” in Finnish Lapland while on a hiking trip. The picture was taken from a bird watching tower on one of many signposted hiking routes in the national park. Finnish Lapland is often pictured and romanticized through stunning landscape images, which attracts a growing number of tourists but also draws migrants as newcomers to the region. My dissertation focuses on young people who are in search of a “good life” in these remote regions of the Arctic. I explore the agency of young migrants as well as different factors of their well-being through the lens of anthropology. The objective of my work is to learn what young migrants value and what they consider to be the building blocks of a good life. One of the main attractions for them is the vast nature, which is being explored by the two brothers in this image.
Anna Fekete - Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology
Titel: Calm me, Klimt and Beethoven!
Can art improve well-being?
In my research, I found that the museum visits reduce stress and anxiety, especially for those who listened to music while viewing visual art. By engaging with art in this way, we can improve our wellbeing, which is especially important during the corona pandemic as museums can still be opened while other services are not available.
This picture reflects on my research study in many ways. The person is standing in front of the original Beethoven Frieze painting by Klimt, while listening to its musical inspiration: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. This was the focus of my study at the Secession Museum in Vienna. With his hand gesture, he imitates the angels in the choir, which is the associated to the calming effects of meditation. This photo encapsulates my research as it visually demonstrates my findings in that the combination of music and visual art reduces anxiety.
Arzu Gökmen - Department of Philosophy
Titel: The standing robot and the moral standing of robots
Is it morally problematic to kick a robot dog? Isn’t it just a machine after all? When it comes to our normative/axiological/moral (NAM) relations to entities/phenomena (e/p), the answer may not be that easy. There are all sorts of e/p associated with different forms of normativity (also the theme of our project FoNTI). I tried to capture some of these in my picture and implied that they may in some sense fall under a form of NAM, except the robot. It doesn’t have a wooden box yet; here ‘wood’ implies that we somehow embraced/naturalized the place of the item in a box. But, robot still stands on its plastic box (implies it’s artificiality), wonders what its moral status is and where it belongs, so do I. My picture depicts-in no particular order: self sustaining candle flame; bacteria (sourdough), water/rivers etc, egg/ embryos, plants/forests, animals, arts, cultures, time, math/sciences, law, technology, money, collective intentionality.
Sainan Guo - Department of Business Decisisons and Analytics
Titel: Choice
Life is full of choices. Every day, everyone has to make decisions. For instance, commuters waver over whether to bring an umbrella tomorrow. Consumers are struggling and selecting among different products all the time. Students face the dilemma of pursuing study or finding a job after graduation. However, it is not so simple as tossing a coin unless people are faced a decision-making with exactly half-half probability, doing a decision in our real life is not an easy task. There are many factors (such as preference ranking, characteristics, utility function and future prediction etc.) that can influence the process of decision-making. In my research, it provides the simplified decision-making models for giving some inspiration to agents who are torn on choosing an optimal selection. This aim of decision-making models is to explain how optimal strategy was made in regard with their choice criteria and preference relations. So, are you ready to make your next Choice?
Stefan Haselberger - Department of Geography and Regional Research
Titel: A topographic signature of life
Abiotic and biotic processes constantly create and shape the landscapes we live in. Especially, vegetation and geomorphic processes interact in various ways. In a palimpsest of overlapping spatial and temporal relationships, it is challenging to identify causal relationships. Glacier foreland environments are unique open-air laboratories that help us to observe initial conditions for vegetation development in a highly active geomorphic surrounding. The expanding discipline of biogeomorphology is focused on this linkage of ecological and geomorphic processes and has the potential to provide knowledge for the application of Nature Based Solutions in environmental management. Within the PHUSICOS project, a group of geomorphologists and ecologists seek to use this knowledge to find new approaches to stabilize alpine slopes.
Barbara Heinisch - Zentrum für Translationswissenschaft
Titel: Building bridges – Das Schicksal der Übersetzung
"In meiner Dissertation „Specialised Translation at the Interface between Technology, Usability and Relevance” beschäftige ich mich mit den vielfältigen Formen des Übersetzens. Insbesondere Fachübersetzen ist zunehmend durch neue Technologien, Anforderungen der Barrierefreiheit und gesellschaftliche Relevanz gekennzeichnet. Übersetzer*innen werden nicht nur deswegen oft als Brückenbauer*innen bezeichnet. Die Art, Qualität, Ästhetik und der Wert einer Brücke bzw. Übersetzung bemessen sich nach ihrer Funktion. Sei es die Übersetzung von Texten aus einer Sprache in eine andere, die Übersetzung innerhalb einer Sprache, die Übersetzung zwischen verschiedenen Sinnesmodalitäten im Sinne der Barrierefreiheit oder die Übersetzung von Wissen in verschiedensten Kontexten - Ziel der Übersetzung ist es, eine geeignete Brücke zu bauen."
Lisa Lenz-Ayoub - Institut für Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie
Titel: Grenzwertig
Gegenstand meiner Doktorarbeit ist der Grenzkonflikt zwischen der Republik Jemen und dem Königreich Saudi-Arabien. In dieser Untersuchung wird die Grenze vordergründig aus Sicht der lokalen Grenzbevölkerung, die überwiegend anhand von Abstammungs- und Territoriumbasierten Merkmalen in Stammesgruppen organisiert ist, betrachtet. Die Unzugänglichkeit des Forschungsgebiets aufgrund der instabilen politischen Lage im Jemen bildet eine zentrale Herausforderung des Gesamtprojektes, zusätzlich erschwert durch die allgegenwärtige Pandemie seit März 2020, die die Grenzen zwischen Beruf und Familienleben, zwischen Home-Office und Betreuungspflichten oft verschwimmen lässt. Das Bild „Grenzwertig“ reflektiert somit sowohl den Fokus meiner Doktorarbeit und die damit verbundenen oft problematischen Aspekte von Grenzen als auch die extrem herausfordernden Umstände, die die Durchführung der Forschungsarbeit begleiten und beeinflussen.
Philipp Marr - Department of Geography and Regional Research
Titel: Climate witnesses
Glaciers and their current retreat are often utilized as iconic structures to confront us with climate change. Research often focusses on modelling trends concerning glacier variability. However, to improve predictions and to understand the impacts on environmental processes it is essential to comprehend past glacier fluctuations and their timings. It is known that rocky (peri-)glacial landforms (visible in the foreground) generally form and are active during cold and stabilize during warmer climates. With certain methods it is possible to put those landforms on a chronological basis and reconstruct climate variabilities from their activity and stabilization. We are able to reconstruct the climate of particular regions several thousands of years back. Rocky landforms are therefore, true witnesses of past climates.
Edo Meyer - Institut für Arbeits-, Wirtschafts- und Sozialpsychologie
Titel: Wintermeer
Diese Bild entstand vor ein paar Monaten am Meer, im Winter. Auch wenn wir in meinem Fachbereich der Psychologie oft im Dunklen tappen, symbolisiert das Bild eher die allgemeine Lebenssituation vieler Menschen in Academia. Zu der schon inhärenten Unsicherheit von befristeten Verträgen und Zielvereinbarungen, gesellt sich die Ungewissheit durch die Folgen der COVID-19 Pandemie. Diese lässt leider viele Vorteile einer akademischen Karriere, wie zum Beispiel das Reisen und der Austausch mit Kollegen auf Konferenzen im Nebel verschwinden. Was bleibt ist ein Schiff im weiten Meer des Unbekannten, im Winter.
Margherita Miele - Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry
Titel: A bit of salt in life
Colorful, dreamy, perfectly cubic crystals, something so beautiful and so simple at the same time. It’s salt, consisting of just Na and Cl and contains 2 of the most important elements in our body. Used everyday for basic activities from the chemists, as in life, beauty is in the beholder’s eyes, able to capture the allure even in the simplicity.
I am Margherita Miele, PhD student in the group of Prof. Pace, Dep. of Pharm. Chem., Uni of Vienna. Our work is focused on organometallic chemistry and as simple as these crystals are made we are trying to develope new methodologies in the most efficient & easiest ways useful in Organic & Medicinal Chemistry.
This picture wants to praise the simplicity, of our existence, and even of the chemistry that is able to put a bit of salt in the life.
Benedikt Mitter - Institut für Sportwissenschaft
Titel: No Pain, no Gain
Obwohl es die Umstände erschwerten, haben auch die Doktorand*innen des Instituts für Sportwissenschaft im vergangenen Jahr ihre Forschungsprojekte zielstrebig verfolgt. Wir scheuen nicht davor zurück, unter Verwendung fortschrittlichster Technologie, Einhaltung des vorgeschriebenen Mindestabstands und höchster Sicherheitsvorkehrungen zur Bewahrung der Gesundheit unserer Proband*innen, unseren Beitrag zur Erforschung der körperlichen Leistungsfähigkeit zu leisten. In meinem Dissertationsprojekt untersuche ich die mathematische Modellierung der muskulären Arbeitskapazität bis zur Erschöpfung in einer Population von krafttrainierten Personen.
Somnath Mukherjee - Institute of Biological Chemistry
Titel: The good shepherd and his sheep
During my trip to Iceland in 2018, our journey towards the ‘golden circle’ came to a halt for 1.5 hours, as the herd of sheep were crossing the only road in that region. Since this is considered to be an event of priority, local police and shepherds were also involved to manage this whole process to undergo without any hassle.
Now, how does it correlate to my current research?
I have been working on a group of proteins known as ‘molecular chaperones’ and how they are related to human diseases. These group of proteins, help other proteins to function properly by staying close to them and watching them over like a ‘guardian angel’. Like the shepherd on the picture, these molecular chaperones help other protein molecules to be on the right track. In case the chaperones fail, the result is onset of diseases like diabetes, cancers, Alzheimer’s.
Erick Ortega Rico - Institut für Strafrecht und Kriminologie
Titel: Mein archimedischer Punkt
I grew up in Barrio San Andrés-El Valle in Caracas, a working-class community facing immense social and economic challenges. I have therefore been interested in economic growth issues from a young age. My mother, who was 17 when I was born, encouraged me to work hard to pursue my ambitions. Here you find our house window’s view and a permanent reminder for the aim of my research, which is to find out “How to deter Grand Corruption in Venezuela Applying Constitutional Economics?”. Thus, my interest is to generate such an impact that the next generations can have the chance to receive high quality public services required to develop their potentials. Recognizing our accountability and duty before our nation and starting to take actions favorable for all the people is the route that is going to resolve our crisis. This doctorate is allowing me to give back to my community, actively participating in the strengthening of Venezuela’s institutions, to support good governance, rule of law, and prosperity.
Raffaella Pagogna - Institut für Geographie und Regionalforschung
Titel: Windows of opportunities
"This photo, titled "Windows of opportunities", was taken 2019 during fieldwork for my PhD project in Harar, Ethiopia. In my research I am particularly interested in the factors shaping migration aspirations. These factors include translocal networks and the use of social media conveying imaginaries about faraway places, as well as migration policies impacting the capabilities to realize migration projects. Therefore, I examined how migration management projects are implemented on a local scale through migration information campaigns and awareness raising programs and how they shape the local perceptions and discourses on migration in the region. This photo shows town dwellers studying work and/or training offers on the local bulletin board. This bulletin board is also used to disseminate information about the risks of human trafficking and migrant smuggling in Harar."
Manuel Pristner - Institut für Lebensmittelchemie & Toxikologie
Titel: Drug therapy and personal environment
"Over a life time humans are exposed to up to hundred thousand different chemical compounds depending on their lifestyle and environment. This includes chemicals like pesticides, environmental pollutants, food additives and plasticizers. The entirety of these personal exposures is called the exposome and is nowadays considered as a complementary part to the genome in regard of disease and health risk factors. At the Department of Food Chemistry and Toxicology at the Faculty of Chemistry we investigate this chemical exposure, for instance chemical exposure in infants through breast milk of the mother. A new research focus is on interactions between environmental derived chemicals and drug therapy, like in the case of the plasticizer bisphenol A and chemotherapeutics. Depending on the individual exposure to chemicals, this can reduce drug efficacy and increase side effects of drug treatment.
Hannah Reiter - Institut für Rechtsphilosophie
Titel: Frauen in der Polizei
Die Dissertation befasst sich mit Erfahrungen und Einstellungen von Polizistinnen in zwei europäischen Ländern (Österreich, England und Wales). Basierend auf Daten, die in über 40 Interviews erhoben wurden, wird begründet, dass die Polizei als Organisation aus stark verfestigten, nur schwer aufbrechbaren, Strukturen besteht, die geschlechtsspezifische Trennlinien und die hegemoniale Position der Männlichkeit perpetuieren. Das vorliegende Bild wurde im Zuge einer weiterführenden, teilnehmenden Beobachtung aufgenommen, die eine tiefere Beschäftigung mit vorherrschenden diskursiven Strukturen erlaubte. Die Arbeit will einen Denkanstoß dazu gegeben, einen umfassend inklusiven Arbeitsort zu schaffen, der die Polizei anders denkt/konzipiert, anstelle einer schlichten Erhöhung des Frauenanteils im bestehenden System.
Erika Schaudy - Institute of Inorganic Chemistry
Titel: A bright idea
"DNA is a fascinating molecule. All the information needed for creation of an entire living being is stored in its DNA. This storage medium does not only determine our appearance, but also has an impact on our character and both physical and mental health. Its processing happens in our body all the time. Sometimes, synthesis of DNA outside of cells is required, for instance when we think of pieces of DNA used in PCR tests, or the development of novel vaccines.
My research focusses on generation of DNA with the help of light. The method is based on the assembly of individual building blocks on a glass
slide – similar to building colorful towers using Lego bricks. Addition of a brick can only take place at positions illuminated with light to
expose the binding site. Thus, very different DNA molecules can be generated on a single surface."
Rebecca Schmid - Department for Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology
Titel: Colour up your neurons
"My research deals with visual perception and attention processes in humans. To make these measurable, I use various methods: For example, I measure overt behaviour such as reaction times or error rates in lab experiments. I find neurological methods particularly interesting, which also enable me to look “inside our brains”, such as electroencephalography (EEG). It continuously measures electrical fluctuations of the brain with high temporal resolution. This allows me to draw conclusions about the brain activity at a specific point in time, e.g. the shift of attention to an object, even though the participant has not made any eye movements towards it. The rather coincidental creation of the artwork depicted in the submitted photo occurred after the long overdue clearing out of our EEG lab. On this occasion, I found old discarded electrodes (see detailed view). This ""work of art"" is currently on display in our living room, where my flatmates can (or have to) admire it every day.
Rey Ulises - Department für Neurowissenschaften und Entwicklungsbiologie
Titel: Worm nervous system
By performing a escape maneuver, this worm expressing a fluorescent protein in all of its 300 neurons, displays a figure that reminds us to a cosmic constellation fated to be engulfed by a nearby black hole.
Sarah Zauner - Zentrum für Mikrobiologie und Umweltsystemwissenschaft
Titel: Diving for the unknown
"Mondmuscheln, eine der artenreichsten Tiergruppen in unseren Meeren, sind besonders häufig in küstennahen Seegraswiesen weltweit. Dort profitieren sie von hohen Schwefelkonzentrationen im Boden, die durch verrottendes Material entstehen und für viele Lebewesen toxisch sind. Nicht so für die Mondmuschel, die durch ihre Jahr-Millionen alte Symbiose mit hochspezialisierten Mikroben in ihren Kiemen diesen Lebensraum für sich erobert hat. So trägt die Mondmuschel dazu bei, giftigen Schwefel im Sediment zu reduzieren und die Gesundheit des Ökosystems Seegraswiese zu erhalten. Um mehr über das Zusammenleben von Mondmuscheln, Mikroben und Seegräsern herauszufinden tauchen wir ab! Wir sammeln Muscheln weltweit, um diese im Labor zu analysieren. Gute Bedingungen herrschen auch hier, an der albanischen Mittelmeerküste in etwa 8 Metern Wassertiefe."