#911 The Aesthetics of Power

Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: why do so many domes crowd our skylines — from the Hagia Sophia to the US Capitol to the Reichstag — and what does a doorknob placed just out of reach in a Dresden church tell us about how buildings persuade? In Room #911 of the Deep Talk Club, under our overarching theme “Power and Violence,” Jürgen walks through his own real-time discovery process — religious versus secular power, cathedrals and palaces built to dwarf the individual, Nazi statuary and North Korea’s bowing rituals, the Statue of Liberty as a rare positive counterexample — while the group also opens up language, emojis, luxury cars, and jewelry as their own aesthetics of power. Yasemin closes with a candid, on-the-record note about how much of the Deep Talk Club’s room planning is now built together with ChatGPT. Listen in on the examples that came up and the perspectives that emerged in dialogue…

Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.

A very good morning to you, and today I’d like to continue together with the room “The Aesthetics of Power. How do visual representations influence our perception of power?” That’s the question we want to look at today, and as every morning, you’re warmly invited again today to join, to start and shape a dialogue together out of the room, to open up different perspectives, and simply to pick up on certain impulses you have regarding the headline, regarding the question, and first set a starting point, to then look together at where the whole thing develops. With the goal, on one hand, of reflecting, and on the other, of opening up different perspectives, to see which insights we can gain from that for ourselves. And in that sense I’m really curious about how today’s room unfolds. You’re welcome to join if you agree that the recordings — we have a recording running in the background — and that this recording will accordingly also be published, or you automatically agree once you raise your hand, so to speak, and join. And then we have three small room rules. They are as follows: first, a profile photo in which you’re clearly recognizable, first and last name, and at least one sentence in the bio. Whoever doesn’t agree with that, can’t speak right now, or wants to stay anonymous, is warmly invited to simply communicate via the chat, so that we can pick up on one thing or another here too. Yes, I’m really curious who dares to start with me this morning here — the aesthetics of power, how do visual representations influence our perception of power, is the question. And with that I’d like to mute myself first and see who wants to start with me today.

A very good morning, dear viewers.

A very good morning, dear Jürgen. What do you say about the topic?

Well, after the first “good morning” and everyone else in the room, since we shouldn’t let time pass in passive silence, not active silence but passive silence, I think I’d like to share an “aha” effect with you. When I came across this topic yesterday, when you brought it up yesterday, my first reaction was that I couldn’t do anything with it at all. And over the course of the day I kept thinking about it, it gave me no peace. And then I sat down with this topic, quite literally. And as you can probably guess, starting from the terminology, taking it under the microscope, to then find a structure, how do the two actually connect. As I said, it wasn’t immediately obvious to me at first, I couldn’t have said, well, that’s clear, it’s this and that. And that’s why I chose this approach. First I asked myself, in which essential forms does power appear to us? Also over the course of our development, meaning the development of us as humanity. There I basically arrived, on a meta level, at this distinction: religious on one side and secular on the other. If you will, basically the power of religions and the power of rulers — open bracket, careful with terminology, we had this distinction, rule was — that was the first meta level for me, becoming clear about that. That’s basically how power could be categorized, in my view. And regarding that — since this structure is supposed to serve to make a connection to aesthetics, forms of expression of the sensory and the meaningful — I already had a suspicion there. And it went in the direction of the mightiness of built space, so basically the specific form of expression in the form of architecture. That was my suspicion. And then of course I was triggered to check this thesis I’d established for myself. So I went to the next level of detail and said, okay, now let’s look at the power of religions. What have we had, for the longest time, as world religions here in our wider Europe? That’s Judaism, that’s Christianity, and that’s Islam. And then I considered, does this criterion of architecture apply to all three? And then I ultimately confirmed it. I’ll spare you the details, I can gladly supply the examples for why I confirm that afterward, but I don’t want to take too much time now. All three of these world religions are characterized by having positioned their power relative to the individual through the size of the built space, in the form of cathedrals, of domes, of mosques, in a dimension that’s partly unimaginable for us today. I did the same exercise then — let me say one more thing that struck me, I’ll come back to it — that there’s a connection between these three religions in the style of building, for me, in my view, namely that domes appear in all of them. Domes: Dome of the Rock, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Hagia Sophia, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Cathedral of Florence. All domes, still impressive today in their mightiness. But for the second point, regarding rulers, the power of rulers, I also went through that mentally, starting from empires, through monarchies and republics, dictatorships all the way to democracy. And not to forget, on today’s date, July 14th, French Revolution, storming of the Bastille. And there too I checked whether this criterion applies, does built space, architecture, also serve as a sign of power there. I’ll spare you the details there for now too. And then I made a checkmark and said, yes, clearly, this power of rulers — I’ll clarify, legitimized by whatever, in contrast to power — expresses itself essentially in all these forms of rule through built space, through palaces, or through very specific — the best example is basically the empire, not just a palace but an entire city, Roman empire, Rome, Chinese empire, the Forbidden City. It’s always architecture, always space, against the backdrop of quite obviously making the individual human small in front of this dimension. And now to come to an end, quite interesting, this was actually the dot on the “i” next to this realization: domes are essentially about position. I of course checked this very strictly regarding our currently prevailing form of rule, democracy. And there I arrived at the founding mother of democracy, the USA, 18th century, Declaration of Independence, and its representation, the White House. And with us in Germany, parliament sits in the Reichstag. Both current forms of democratic rule have thus made the insignia of the power of built space from past eras their own. And — now I come to the point about the dome — both carry a dome. The White House from the very beginning, and the Reichstag — I don’t remember exactly, 15 or 20 years ago, after reunification, a dome was put on top of the Reichstag. That was, for me, an example of how a topic in this room, once you dive in, can absolutely lead to an “aha” effect and to an enrichment. And that’s what I wanted to share with you. I’m very grateful for that, and thank you for letting me elaborate like that. Thank you so much for listening, everyone.

Yes, fantastic. Thank you so, so much, and it’s totally exciting to be able to follow this path, so to speak. So thank you for sharing that, step by step. As you told that, I asked myself, what about statues? Do you have — if you think about it — a feeling about that too? An impulse?

A very negative feeling comes up there, dear Yasemin. For me that’s because I’ve dealt a lot with the time of National Socialism, how it came about and why it came about and what happened there. And one aspect — that’s a very important point — besides architecture, that was, for me, the second form of expression of power by the Nazis, through the sculptor Breker, who created these monumental statues, the embodiment of the dominance of the Germanic race. That’s the first example that pops up for me. And the second thing that spontaneously comes to mind is that in North Korea there’s still this statue of the founder of the Kim dynasty. And everyone who passes by, both locals and, if there are any foreigners at all, has to bow before this statue. So that’s a point besides built space I’ll add now, statues, yes indeed, noted.

A very clear sign and expression, in aesthetic, in quotation marks, aesthetic form of power.

Yes, we can check whether there are also positive aspects or positive connotations included there. I spontaneously think, for example, of the Statue of Liberty. That should come up.

Sorry, that occurred to me spontaneously too. Statue of Liberty. Indeed. Fits.

Yes, very, very exciting. And I remember, when I was in the US for the first time, becoming aware — let me think for a moment which city, that was New York I believe, in New York it was really, really strongly pronounced — that I became aware how, really in this architecture generally, this power is actually symbolized too. I remember very clearly that you feel relatively small when you stand in front of these buildings, in front of these skyscrapers, so to speak. And that was the first time I had the feeling, here you first understood what skyscrapers are. With us those are more, in quotation marks, more like high-rises, with a few exceptions. But there you realized where this term actually comes from. And the interesting thing about what made this so overwhelming, for me, wasn’t even the height, so to speak, but the base area in the architecture. If you stand in front of the building, these plinths, so to speak, are so high that it’s basically at human eye level. And I found that really insane. And that was immediately, directly recognizable to me as having something to do with power symbolism. So with a certain — I connected it with megalomania at that point. I don’t know, those were the impulses. I remember very clearly, even though that was many years ago, that on one hand it was very imposing and on the other hand also a bit frightening, because maybe you don’t know it in that form from your own country, in that magnitude. Those are a few more impulses I wanted to bring in in this context. I don’t know whether we might have further examples of experiences too, maybe also from our own travels or similar, where we might have seen something and had some kind of association with it. It’s also totally exciting to look at what that does to us. And even today, when we look at various buildings or something, I’m in Frankfurt now for example, at banks or similar there are also always some statues or some symbols or whatever in front of the building, usually depicted in an enormous size too, in some form. And here too there’s some kind of entanglement somewhere. I’m really curious what you say about that, before I play the ball back to you, dear Jürgen, and also warmly invite everyone else again. Jürgen already dealt with the topic yesterday, so to speak, through the announcement, so he looked into one thing or another too, and made the start today with that. I’d still be interested though — you also of course have the possibility to connect here, but also maybe to look and think for yourselves, the aesthetics of power. How do visual representations influence our perception of power? So we have various components in here, we have perception in there, we have visual representations in there. Aesthetics doesn’t necessarily have to be traced back exclusively to architecture. If we look at the definition — you already picked that up in the meantime — if we look at it simply from the perspective of beauty, so to speak, and the laws of harmony, nature and art for example, the perception of the sensory and the visually vivid, as you also just brought in in this last part, then we can certainly open up further doors at this point and bring in further examples here too. I’m really curious about that. Feel free to join in and connect here, so that we have various examples and perspectives, and through that new impulses too, and a many-faceted room.

Jürgen, would you like to connect here again?

Yes, I’d like to connect. Though your contribution, and especially the relativization through the size of the statues in front of big buildings, got me thinking. And especially in Frankfurt, where I’m often around in the banking sector. This is now a suspicion of mine. I don’t want to elaborate on it further though, so as not to stay so one-sidedly on architecture, which you also addressed. But the architecture — I mentioned this, sorry, the building of space — should obviously serve, definitely in the religious realm, but also in the realm of rule, to represent the smallness of the individual. So the smallness before God, and on the other hand, my interpretation, the smallness — not the unimportance, but the smallness — of the individual before the rule of the commonwealth. And maybe, this is my consideration, maybe these statues in front of these buildings are an attempt at relativization. I’m thinking, for example, of the Walking Man in Frankfurt, that the human figure there is depicted in an oversized dimension too, and referred to a completely different scale-wise dimension, not mentally but scale-wise, than in reality. Maybe that’s a kind of compensation. I don’t know. I can’t tell you. And I just want to add one thing. The mightiness of built space has two dimensions, for me anyway. On one hand it’s the absolute size of the area in square meters, but it’s also humanity’s primal ambition, ever since the Tower of Babel, to build upward, so to build toward the sky. And this intention alone, as opposed to building outward, necessarily entails, or has the consequence, that the individual becomes smaller through it. So right now I’m slowly becoming a fan of this topic, dear Yasemin. Thank you so much for listening.

Yes, wonderful. Thank you so, so much. So there’s somehow more hidden behind it than you might initially assume. And it’s totally exciting to really look at this. And because you just said this building-upward thing too, this bigger, stronger, more powerful, faster, more efficient — those are all escalations too that we have in various places. If we now move a bit away from the origin, this smallness of the individual before God or before the rule of the commonwealth, and toward — but that also has to do with religion in its origin, especially if we look at it again from a scientific perspective — also this human need to explore, to research, to discover, and to find answers. And here some things have changed. And maybe to look at that again from the perspective of science and consider how that has developed further, or what further development has taken place, so to speak. And here too this aspect of building upward, this aspect of leaving the planet, exploring other planets and so on, maybe thought in that direction too, to bring that in. What does that do to you, Jürgen?

One thing leads to another. I can’t even keep up anymore with documenting and saving all this, but this triggers for me one of these — and on that side I also see myself in one of the definitions of aesthetics that tends more in this direction, I think it was Kant who said all aesthetics is what touches our senses. So in a variety of ways, senses, tactile and seeing and hearing, you all know that, but also the sensory in the sense of what gives meaning. And there’s a completely spontaneous connection for me now to science, namely in the search for — I won’t say what holds the world together at its innermost core — but what’s actually the meaning of the whole thing? And what are, potentially, the consequences of what we experience as laws of nature, in a form of scientific transfer of meaning? Meaning, I can — now I’m back at architecture — I can use a space in two dimensions to show something bigger, to be more efficient, to house and bring together more people. So those are all trigger points that excite me right now. Thank you.

Yes wonderful, thank you so, so much. And Ria has also joined, so I’m really curious, Ria, what you’d like to contribute. What are your thoughts on the topic?

A very good morning. Yesterday, after the announcement of the topic, I thought, you won’t have anything to say about that. It’s really far away. But as I listened to you now, an example came to mind, and I’ve always used this example in a completely different context, because I find it totally insane how architects created something, or built something. There’s also this monumental work, “The Pillars of Power,” I think, “The Pillars of the Earth.” And in Dresden — I’m from that area — there’s a court church. And this court church has an entrance door, a double-winged entrance door. And there are several steps leading up to this door. It’s directly on the square in front of a bridge. That means, you come from the New Town over the bridge, a very old, beautiful bridge. From the New Town you have almost exactly the Canaletto view, you walk across this bridge, arrive at this square, and look at this door. And if you look at this door, the door has a very obvious handle, and this handle, in proportion to the door, is beautifully placed aesthetically. And if you’re standing below and consider roughly at what height the handle is — I’ve asked this question many times — most people say, well, roughly at shoulder height. And then everyone reaches like that, not just how you’d grab such a handle, but they say, okay, if I now raise my arm like this, just above my shoulder. And then people go up, and already in the first steps up the stairs, they realize they’ve completely misjudged it. The handle can only be reached with an outstretched or almost outstretched arm. But it’s embedded in such aesthetics that you completely underestimate it, and you only recognize the power and the beauty of this aesthetic in the moment you’re standing in front of this enormous door. You manage to open the door, you can open it easily, it’s an oak door or something. But I’m fascinated every time by how architects were able to represent the world, and how you lose yourself there and can’t estimate it. And if I then also assume that this was made by people, that people discovered this, developed it, worked it out, thought it up, to bring some information to the others — here I might say, don’t be fooled, go there, look at it, go to God, he’ll tell you what’s right. Maybe that’s the interpretation. And it’s different from what you believe. And that’s something we humans made. There’s a wonderful song about the Sistine Madonna, and the group — I think it’s Stankowski Mommsen, or Elektra, I don’t know — the group sings, and on the seventh day man created God for himself. And that’s so contrary to the Bible, but genius nonetheless. There’s so much in that. We humans made this ourselves. We humans do a lot of good for ourselves, we do a lot of bad to ourselves, and the aesthetics of power is our aesthetic, sometimes unintentionally, sometimes intentionally, sometimes very consciously designed, but it does an incredible amount to us. Yes, that was my contribution. I have to head out again soon too, but I wanted to contribute that. Thank you.

Yes, fantastic. Thank you so, so much. Jürgen, was that a hand raise just now?

Yes, that was a hand raise, if I may respond to that right away, if Ria is still in the room. Yes, gladly. Yes, heartfelt thanks, dear Ria, for your contribution. I’d like to pick up an initial impulse that you mentioned right at the end, when you said — that it’s made by humans. I don’t know, let me put it this way, that aesthetics — you wanted to express that aesthetics is made by humans. And if that had been your statement, I’d have a counterpoint, or an addition, let’s say, not quite a counterpoint. Of course aesthetics is also made by humans, in the form of fashion, there are other forms of expression too like music or heaven knows what else. But for me the greatest aesthetic, and therefore also the greatest power that acts on us, is nature. And I see it, when I go into the mountains or find myself somewhere in an extraordinary landscape, basically as entering a cathedral. I’ve often noted that for myself too. I turn into a new cathedral, so to speak, out of this feeling, this overwhelming feeling, of being impressed by this mightiness of nature. And that, at least in its original state, was not made by us humans. Now I’ll make a link to the forms of rule too. As an essential expression of forms of rule, especially in monarchy and in dynasties, the expansion and maintenance of garden facilities and parks was basically an artificially created nature. And in that sense that’s a breaking open of what, or a side branch to what I just said, that besides aesthetics that’s arbitrary or built, constructed by humans, there’s also a completely natural one, namely nature. And that’s another link in this topic. I can only say again and again, it’s a great topic, dear Yasemin.

Yes, thank you so, so much. And when Ria mentioned the bridge, another impulse came up for me too, namely to think about bridges again and look. I immediately thought of the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul for example, or also the Golden Gate Bridge in the US. Whoever has had the opportunity to actually cross such huge bridges will probably have this feeling relatively tangibly close too. So this overwhelming thing, this “it does something to you,” I find. Jürgen, would you like to say something about bridges again?

Yes, gladly. But I’d nod along to that, not that it’s a claim to completeness of my structure of religious and rulers. For me, and I fully agree with you there, that’s an expression of aesthetics and also an expression of the power of science. More of science I’d say, I don’t know how you see it, but for me, I’d file it under this aspect of science.

Yes, absolutely. And at the same time there are also other components where this ruling component comes in too. I’m thinking now of Erdogan, who has actually set himself the goal of pursuing the biggest projects. So whether that’s various new bridges, whether that’s some kind of underwater tunnel to create a connection and so on. So thinking big here too, so to speak, definitely using science, in quotation marks, to create something big, always with the goal, we built the biggest XY, we made it. And here the connection to this idea of rule is quite clear for me again too.

Jürgen, would you like to connect there again?

Yes, I’ll tirelessly agree with you there. It popped up for me too in connection with the bridge. The counterpart to that is the tunnel under the Bosphorus, I read about that at some point too. In the same measure I’d also classify — I don’t know what status this construction of this nuclear power plant is currently in, and of all places in a very earthquake-prone zone, but the absolute claim to build one of the biggest and most modern nuclear power plants — I’d classify that under this aspect too. And it is indeed an expression of rule then. You’re completely right, yes.

Yes, so interesting how these various, I’ll call them, layer-pillars can on one hand stand for themselves and be looked at, and how over time they’ve maybe also experienced entanglements at this point, and to look at that from this perspective too. And so that’s totally exciting. And now that we’ve been talking about aesthetics made by humans, by human hand, maybe let’s think in simpler structures too. Fashion, design etc. Are there certain parallels we can open up there too? What about that? What’s it like if we look at the whole thing in the media or similar? Is there, in the fourth estate so to speak, also representations that catch our attention, where we see entanglements or connection points that might have “arisen” from this origin, in quotation marks? That might also be quite interesting to look at, from this perspective, whether we get further impulses from that too. Jürgen, do you have ideas there?

Yes, so with fashion and jewelry, which you brought up, I believe that was in there too. That triggers me. July 14th, French Revolution, the Sun King. The French court, or the king as representative, why is he still extraordinary and striking even today through his clothing and the jewelry he wears? In that sense, for me too, and transferred to today’s time, I think of very specific luxury watches, also especially jewelry, of course very expensive jewelry, that express a certain personified power for me too and have continued to this day from earlier eras, so to speak, I’d say. And whether you want to get into this, I’d like to point out one more thing. We keep having this topic of positive and negative connotation. What are — I’m asking myself now — what are the positive sides, the positive aesthetics? So we’ve been talking constantly about extravagant buildings, about gigantic buildings that are meant to make people small, and not always, but in most cases we’ve talked about that, but are there also positive aspects of aesthetics that either counteract power or represent a positive power? I’m asking myself that right now.

Yes, wonderful. Wonderful questions. And while we let that sink in a bit, and maybe one thought or another comes up, let me first tie back to the previous point. You mentioned luxury watches for example and jewelry in general. I now thought again about the car as a status symbol. That’s also quite classic with us in our society for example. Still today. It’s decreasing a bit over time, but still very, very strongly pronounced. And things that are rarer, like diamonds or gold, which have endured over very, very long periods now, and despite various fluctuations that occur, have always kept their value, in quotation marks, or even increased it. And I wanted to bring that in as an example too, that we might look at that too. We actually encounter quite a lot of that from everyday life. Now we could also open up my house, my yacht, and so on. So there are, I believe, many examples where these status symbols play a role and maybe also pay into one’s own identification. But we don’t need to open up identification now, that would get too big at this point. So, and then to consider again, I find it nice to open up this positive side again too. Does anything come to mind for you directly, Jürgen?

Well, honestly, I have a bit of a stomachache there, dear Yasemin, with the car. Because I’m quite affine to terminology, and if I start from power and look at it — if I define it now, maybe not universally but for my own purposes, and say the essential criteria for power are enforcing something against another person’s will, without having their agreement, or being legitimized in some form, by virtue of a granted authority. That’s power for me. And I have a stomachache because then, for me, the car — I find it hard to build the bridge there — to define it as a means of power, to act on others against their will. Maybe with the bridge to say, to change their will in the direction of “also wanting to have it.” But I’d have to think about that some more. But that’s why I have a bit of a need for clarification at the moment regarding this point.

Yes, that would actually be the connecting point I’d go in through too, to actually say, so on one hand it’s a status symbol that’s also recognized as such by everyone, or seen, or acknowledged. And on the other hand there’s this envy factor that comes in there too, for example. So everyone who wears an expensive car, expensive watches, or whatever, will have had corresponding experiences already in everyday life too. In quotation marks, I’ll just claim that now, also from my own experiences that I’ve had. Or if we opened up examples about postings or something, discussions come up immediately. Immediately there are lots of people on board looking at it from various perspectives. But here this factor plays in, that — well, whether that’s from the — you’d have to look now, what’s the interest or intention of the person who, so to speak, owns such a vehicle or something. That doesn’t necessarily always have to be connected to the term power. But the interactions that arise from it, there this power aspect somehow seems to play a role for me too. Would you like to connect there again, Jürgen?

Well, with respect, if I reference my own person, and I’ve been driving such a status car for almost 40 years, I have to clearly counter you — maybe subconsciously, sorry, maybe subconsciously, but consciously, having felt this as an instrument of power — I haven’t. I hope my subconscious confirms me in some form, that I now become free or remain free from a guilty conscience. But I personally can’t follow that. Maybe that’s the case for others, but I’d contradict that, dear Yasemin. Let’s leave it at that. We don’t have to agree either. And maybe something will develop over the course of the rooms that neither of us can see today yet. And in that sense I find it quite nice to have different perspectives on the topics.

And let’s go with that toward this positive connotation. Do you have examples for that?

Oh yes, I’d have an example. But I think, if I remember your preview correctly, that’s its own room. And that’s the topic of the aesthetics of language. So for me, maybe even the most-used, one of the most dangerous, but also one of the most beautiful, as an expression of aesthetics, is, for me, language. How we communicate with each other, and how artists, aestheticians of this genre, of this language, bring it closer to us. I’m an absolute fan of that.

We can definitely already look at that a bit tomorrow. So the room isn’t called the aesthetics of language, but the violence of words. To what extent can language be a weapon? Maybe that’s the connection now, though thought in the direction of aesthetics, shaped through today’s room. But that’s then also a different angle, so to speak. So I’d find it quite exciting if we already took a first look at that here. Jürgen?

Well, if we define aesthetics as what moves our senses, then, I’d classify it that way, even in this first moment, though I think these are all topics I’d want to give myself time to think about. But then violence as a means of language is a kind of manifestation of negative aesthetics. And there are also the most infamous examples of how you can violate a language. And now please don’t see this in direct connection to the last sentence, but that’s a topic that has maybe moved us more and more in recent years, this gendering, which some see as a violation of language and others see as an enrichment. And I can only hope that our language is used to reach an agreement in a polite, tolerant discourse. Quite interesting. Thank you.

Yes, wonderful. That was actually what I thought of directly too, with the gender topic, where there are very, very different stances and opinions too, and that’s why it’s always very, very exciting discussions to follow too. So, in that sense, language plays a role here too. And especially when we think toward language, where is language used everywhere? So the aesthetics of language, both positive and negative. And I already brought in the media as the fourth estate earlier too. And media certainly makes use of language too, especially in written form, but also in visual form, a lot runs not just through images but also through language. So we have both image and language here too. That means, here too, various channels are used, so to speak, and the senses are addressed again, and thus perception too. Maybe we can build another bridge there, Jürgen.

Yes, though I think, especially since you just brought that up — and this is all really unrefined, these are trigger points I’m just letting out now based on what you said — that especially through the switch from classical print media to digital media, visual language, for me, from my perspective, is taking on an increasing dominance. That only occurs to me now as I let the usual daily newspapers and weekly papers pass by in review. There the possibility for editors and those responsible is of course very great now with visual language, and it obviously works more clearly than spoken language, with visual language relatively short and punchy. I don’t want to say simple, but short and punchy, to anchor a matter in our brain and free up our associations too, which I’d otherwise have to first read with more effort. So that would be my connection now to your starting point.

Yes, thank you so, so much. And by the way, that’s not just the case in the media, it’s increasingly the case in our everyday life too, if we observe or think about how often, for example, emojis are used. Especially the younger generation works very, very intensively with emojis, for example in messages that are sent, and also symbols in general, so every form of symbolism that’s represented. We picked up various symbols before, when we talked about love and happiness for example. And I remember that certain symbols were very, very strongly linked for us through this repetition, so that we immediately think of certain images, and it’s clear for everyone right away, that stands for happiness, or that stands for love, or whatever. We opened that up in that context with happiness and love under this overarching theme. That’s why I’m making the connection now. But of course you can transfer that to many other contexts too. That means the image also plays a really massive role there. Jürgen, would you like to connect there again?

Yes, I remember that well. I remember these sessions quite well. I believe the topic was happiness, if I remember correctly. And especially this topic of symbolism, and especially speaking with emojis. And it’s also, if I remember correctly, especially in your core competency, something that actually seduces us away from the effortful so-called slow thinking, meaning logical and consistent questioning, more toward fast thinking and fast communicating, maybe against the backdrop of sparing our brain this energy expenditure, of forming long sentences and writing something down, and instead somehow pressing an emoji and saying, there, and you get that, that now stands for applause, or I love you. So that would be my recap of what we captured back then.

Yes, that was under the overarching theme of love and happiness. I don’t remember anymore in which order we set that up. There we also looked at the symbols, both of happiness and of love. And it’s exciting what you say, this fast thinking too. The question is whether we really think faster through that. Probably not really. But we probably interpret faster, and so evaluate, get into evaluation faster, and possibly think that we’re supposedly thinking about the same thing, or interpreting the same thing. Here though, quite quickly, the aspect of faulty communication comes in too. We’ve opened that up in many places already, with the rooms, that we always try to cleanly define the terms too, especially against the backdrop of checking, are we even talking about the same thing at all? What does that mean for me? What does that mean for you? And we very often find that we first need approximations, so to speak, or also a commitment, to first talk about it, to realize, is this even the same thing I understand by it? In everyday life, with language too, we have a limit in many places here. That means we take the shortcut today too, or also in the past again and again, and assume that we understand the same thing by it. But we often don’t. And that’s now taken on another form, so to speak, through this abbreviation with visual language, so emojis etc., symbols. And also with classical symbols. Even if we now, whatever, with happiness we had the four-leaf clover. It stands for happiness for us, but what does happiness mean? And at the latest at the second point, when we start talking about it, and that was the case back then too, we’ll notice that it’s not the same for all of us, but that it’s very individual in part too. That means, we might still have the connection to a term through an image, but what the meaning of the term is again at that point, there we get back into the complexity, in quotation marks. Jürgen, how do you see that?

Oh, dear Yasemin, mentally I’m now on a path, how should I put it, that you’re opening up for me there. Specifically, I believe you mentioned yesterday and the day before that this should or will be a topic at some point, explicitly this unconscious bias. And in connection with fast and slow thinking, I assume you’re familiar with the term, that goes back to Kahneman, this Nobel laureate for economics, who dealt a lot with thinking and the psychology of thinking. What you just said fits in there without any problem, but I think that’s a dimension that would now, above all, blow past our remaining time. But that associates a lot of connections for me, especially regarding the way we think. But not just how we think, but what this thinking and this distinction — I use a kind of fast thinking, a more emotionally driven thinking, and on the other hand a reflective thinking and logical questioning — does to our behavior. And there are very many quite interesting experiments about that too. But that would be a topic I’d bring up in full force, if I may say so, this topic again, I believe we already had it, opening up thinking in all its facets.

Yes, thank you so, so much. And I’d even written down a combination of three terms. That was thinking, acting, and there was another term you brought in too. I don’t have it handy right now, but I definitely noted it down. So the triangle I took away from — I had to read the book twice until I had roughly the surrogate together — that was this connection between unconscious bias on one hand, and, well, he calls that priming. I don’t know if you can do anything with this term. So very specific, conscious experimental setups that, through their execution in the experiment, affect later behavior. And the third, to keep it a bit more generally understandable, are rules of thumb. So not unconscious distortions, but conscious simplifications that we’re very happy to accept, to make life, meaning brain activity, easier for ourselves. Rules of thumb, or maybe the specific term will come to me later, then I’ll deliver it too. That would be, for me, this exciting triangle I’d really like to grab hold of sometime. Thank you.

Yes wonderful. Thank you so, so much. Yes, that’s indeed, as you said, that’s a big topic, and that’s why it makes sense to take that as an overarching theme too and look at it more closely there, and it would actually lend itself, whatever terms those were. I did note them down, I just don’t have them handy right now, so all is good either way. And that would also lend itself, because especially the unconscious bias topic, which we’ll look at again from this perspective in this context now with the current overarching theme power and violence, comes relatively toward the end too, because there’s also a dramaturgical logic built into the rooms coming up over the next week that we’re working through. And accordingly it would actually probably lend itself to continue directly with this next overarching theme then. And yes, so I find that a cool thing anyway, and I’m totally with you that it would just leap out of this room. But I find it really nice to already show this connection, so to hint at it, kind of a seed-planting at this point, to fall back on that later too and build the corresponding bridges here then. That’s a really exciting topic, both the unconscious bias, fast thinking, slow thinking, the studies that exist in this area, and the amazing insights in this area too, which then also drove the neurosciences forward groundbreakingly in this context. So in that sense a lot builds on itself too, especially when you look at science, how everything supports each other, through the groundbreaking insights gained here, further new insights could then also be created through investigations and so on that were carried out. But we’d really have to look at that dedicatedly again to give it its rightful place too, to understand the connections there again too. Totally great, I find it impressive.

And yes, with that I’d like to move into the closing round for today, and gladly once more with the invitation, the aesthetics of power, how do visual representations influence our perception of power, because that’s what we started with, that we now build the bridge back, so to speak, and set a kind of highlight or insight. Jürgen, what do you say?

Yes, I’ll say relatively little and just repeat what I said at the beginning. This “aha” effect in working through this, finding a structure for myself in preparation for this room, that intensified clearly through the course and through the dialogue with you, Yasemin. I thank you for that. So many connecting points became obvious that show me again, slow thinking, going deeper, questioning, am I really at the bottom with what this thing is actually about? Or is there another aspect that expands the perspective further? That was a great room. Heartfelt thanks. And let me say one more thing. I’ve only just seen now, it’s room 911, and now I also understand why you arrived at luxury cars or status cars. Have a nice day, and I hope I can join tomorrow. Ciao, farewell.

Fantastic, yes thank you so, so much. And I’d also like to, since that maybe led to a bit of astonishment too, with the room title and so on, gladly lift a “secret” here in a moment too, so to speak. And maybe let’s observe the rooms from this perspective too going forward, I find that totally exciting too, to look at that on the meta level too. Because for many weeks now we’ve been increasingly using AI, meaning ChatGPT, to do various things with it, and over the past weeks we’ve also repeatedly let ourselves be supported by this tool, to gather first ideas for a room, for an overarching theme and so on. And for the first time now we’ve done this, really having ChatGPT completely suggest the list of ideas, always leaving out Sunday for the author’s breakfasts and so on, so that it’s only shown with gaps, so to speak, so that we can then fill in the corresponding spots with the authors’ names and similar. And all the way to, of course step by step, but all the way to formulating the sub-headlines and also bringing an order into the topic that should logically build on each other, which is also what Image-Activity understands by that. And it was really impressive for us to see what results came out of that. And of course we made slight adjustments in the wording at one point or another too. Astonishingly little that got thrown out of the topics. So maybe that as an insight at this point too. And that’s also totally exciting. And especially with this room it was, at first, an “aha, the aesthetics of power, well that sounds exciting to start with.” And then the wording, how do visual representations influence our perception of power? Does that actually have to say “of power,” or should it be phrased differently somehow? So you suddenly start thinking about that. And I’m sharing that with you on one hand because — let’s just observe this. We’ve decided, quite clearly, that we’ll integrate ChatGPT even more strongly here too, going forward, also with the various plugins and so on that we use. So not exclusively just ChatGPT, to work here even more efficiently on certain things, because it’s necessary, otherwise we couldn’t handle the amount and mass of projects and so on that we’re currently working on at all. So you can imagine that in the past, taken as a whole, an entire day was spent on the planning and sub-headlines and so on, sometimes spread out, but really taken in total, we’ve really evaluated this, an entire day was always spent to do this planning. And that’s of course a massive difference now if you have the possibility to use ChatGPT in such a way that of course we still always look over it and make decisions and then maybe make adjustments at one point or another, or also change the order, add supplements, and so on. But there’s no comparison when you look at this time aspect. And that of course also creates room again for other things, so that we can continue certain things, just like the Deep Talk Club, because it becomes possible through this efficiency increase — so to really see that from this positive perspective too, and at the same time maybe also, and that’s why I’m not making a secret of it either, to say — so this was, by the way, a suggestion from ChatGPT. I’m impressed too, just from when I read the headline, I stumbled over it at first. Then I thought, I actually find that, it has something to it somehow. And then I thought, let’s just see what comes of it. And I find it fantastic, Jürgen, I got similar feedback now too, both from Ria and from you, the first impulses we had. But it shows, if we engage with it, in quotation marks, what can actually come out of it. And I find that impressive again too. And there we are, in this interplay between human and machine at this point. And I think that’s a really great example today. And I’m just curious how that develops further too, also with the other rooms. If you stumble across one thing or another, we can gladly look at that again too. I can also always gladly tell you, if you have questions, whether that was the ChatGPT suggestion or whether that was something we changed or picked up ourselves. And so I find that totally exciting, because — and that was one of the goals I set myself too — that once we’re through this, so to speak, this is kind of a pilot phase now, to really have had a lot essentially worked out by ChatGPT, to have let it do that, to then see, what are the results, and then come to a decision again, can we use it in this form? Yes, no? Or does it need more activity from us again after all at this point? And that’s why I find that interesting on this meta level too. Totally exciting, to just look at that together with you. We can do that. And please remind me too, if I should forget, at the latest when we go into the consolidation, so to speak, at the last room, that we pick up this aspect again and gladly talk about it together again too, to evaluate, against the backdrop of the experiences we’ll have made together with it by then, in retrospect at the last room, together, and consider, how did we experience that, or how was that for us, and does it make sense to keep working this way? Or are there maybe also quality losses, and then of course we’ll have to make corrections? Exactly. So in that sense I find that exciting too. That’s why I wanted to share that with you at the end of the room too.

And I’m now really looking forward to our next topic tomorrow. I mentioned it earlier already. The violence of words. To what extent can language be a weapon? That’s the question we want to look at tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it, whoever joins and brings in various impulses here. And let’s look together again at which direction the room develops together. In that sense, I wish you well and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.