Sebastian Vehlken

Papers

Total Citations

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About

Sebastian Vehlken is a leading media theorist whose work bridges the history of science, technology, and cultural techniques. His primary research areas include the media history of swarm research, collective robotics, and the socio-technological implications of distributed intelligence. Vehlken’s major contribution is his concept of “zootechnologies,” which reframes swarming not merely as a biological phenomenon but as a fundamental cultural technique and a model for understanding dynamic, collaborative processes in society. His most-cited work, the book *Zootechnologies: A Media History of Swarm Research* (2019), provides a groundbreaking media-archaeological account of how swarm logic has evolved from animal studies to computational systems. In his article “Pervasive Intelligence” (2018), Vehlken critically examines swarm robotics (SR), distinguishing its form of distributed AI from traditional centralized models and exploring the societal consequences of deploying swarms of unmanned systems. Though his citation counts are modest, his work is highly influential in the emerging field of media and technology studies, offering a unique historical and conceptual lens for researchers and students interested in the intersection of biology, computation, and culture.