{{Short description|German art historian and journalist}} {{Multiple issues| {{COI|date=November 2021}} {{NPOV language|date=November 2021}} }} {{Infobox person | name = <!-- include middle initial, if not specified in birth_name --> | image = Congreso Futuro - 2019-01-14 - 28.jpg | alt = A Caucasian female in a dark blue top, pearl necklace, hair pulled back in a ponytail, holding a microphone. | caption = Bunz in 2019 | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1971|11|16|df=y}} | birth_place = Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany | death_date = <!-- {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|1971|11|16|df=y}} --> | death_place = | nationality = | other_names = | occupation = Philosopher, journalist, art historian | years_active = | known_for = Founder of ''De:Bug'' | notable_works = }} '''Mercedes Bunz''' (born 16 November 1971) is a German art historian, journalist, and the Professor of Digital Culture and Society at King's College London.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/mercedes-bunz|title=King's College London, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Department of Digital Humanities: Staff. |access-date=14 July 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=London |first=King's College |title=Dr Mercedes Bunz awarded AHRC's BRAID Fellowship |url=https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/dr-mercedes-bunz-awarded-ahrcs-braid-fellowship |access-date=2026-01-28 |website=King's College London |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Mercedes Bunz |url=https://www.cccb.org/en/participants/file/mercedes-bunz/243674 |access-date=2026-01-28 |website=CCCB |language=en}}</ref>
==Biography== ===Early career=== Bunz studied philosophy and art history at the Freie Universität Berlin, after passing her final exams at the Celtis-Gymnasium secondary school in the German town of Schweinfurt in 1991. Together with Sascha Kösch, Riley Reinhold, and Benjamin Weiss she founded the Berlin music monthly ''De:Bug'' in 1997, becoming its co-editor and editor-in-chief from 1999 until 2001.<ref>{{Cite web |first1=Stephan |last1=Weichert |first2=Christian |last2=Zabel |url=http://www.alpha-journalisten.de/alpha2/alpha2/alpha2/bunz_mercedes.html |title=Mercedes Bunz – Das Tornado-Mädchen |year=2010 |access-date=11 June 2011 |language=German |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110602021052/http://www.alpha-journalisten.de/alpha2/alpha2/alpha2/bunz_mercedes.html |archivedate=2 June 2011 }}</ref>
She was awarded a scholarship by Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, enabling her to graduate at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar<ref name="carta">{{cite web |url=http://carta.info/autor/mercedes_bunz/ |title=Profil von Mercedes Bunz |publisher=Carta |access-date=11 June 2011 |language=German |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110726114024/http://carta.info/autor/mercedes_bunz/ |archive-date=26 July 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref> writing about the history of the internet between the 1950s and the 1980s. Her dissertation thesis was published as a non-fiction book in 2008. This was also used by Melih Bilgil in his 2009 animation ''History of the Internet''.<ref>{{cite web |first=Melih |last=Bilgil |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hIQjrMHTv4 |title=History of the Internet |website=YouTube |year=2009 |access-date=2 January 2012}}</ref>
===Work=== Mercedes Bunz's work has been both academic and journalistic. Having worked as a freelance journalist for a period, Bunz became a lecturer at Bielefeld University. In that same year she also began working for Berlin city magazine ''zitty''<ref>{{cite news |first=Anna |last=Reimann |url=http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,433958,00.html |title=Zitty'-Chefredakteurin Bunz Die Ausgepennte |work=Spiegel Online |date=30 August 2006 |access-date=11 June 2011 |language=German}}</ref> before running the on-line business of the German daily ''Tagesspiegel''.<ref>{{cite web |first=Sascha |last=Kösch |url=http://de-bug.de/medien/archives/mercedes-geht-zu-tagesspiegel-online.html |title=Mercedes geht zu Tagesspiegel-Online. Von einem Chefredakteursposten zum nächsten |publisher=De:Bug |date=15 February 2007 |access-date=11 June 2011 |language=German}}</ref> In 2009, she joined the London newspaper ''The Guardian'' as a media and technology reporter. She stayed with ''The Guardian'' until the beginning of 2011, where she followed events in on-line journalism and social networking websites.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/profile/mercedes-bunz |title=Mercedes Bunz Profile |newspaper=The Guardian |access-date=11 June 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first=Jochen |last=Voß |url=http://www.dwdl.de/nachrichten/22110/chefredakteurin_bunz_verlsst_tagesspiegelde/ |title=Private Gründe Chefredakteurin Bunz verlässt |website=tagesspiegel.de |publisher=DWDL.de |date=7 August 2009 |access-date=11 June 2011 |language=German}}</ref>
In 2010 Bunz was awarded the ''Fachjournalisten-Preis'' by the German association of specialist editors, or ''Deutscher Fachjournalisten-Verband''.<ref>{{cite web |publisher=Deutscher Fachjournalisten-Verband |url=http://www.dfjv.de/home/news_einzelansicht/browse/infopool/article/2/deutscher-fachjournalisten-kongress-in-berlin-dr-mercedes-bunz-erhaelt-fachjournalisten-preis-2010/news_einzelansicht.html?cHash=fbfeebbf1d&no_cache=1&sword_list%5B0%5D=bunz |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120325152930/http://www.dfjv.de/home/news_einzelansicht/browse/infopool/article/2/deutscher-fachjournalisten-kongress-in-berlin-dr-mercedes-bunz-erhaelt-fachjournalisten-preis-2010/news_einzelansicht.html?cHash=fbfeebbf1d&no_cache=1&sword_list%5B0%5D=bunz |url-status=dead |archive-date=25 March 2012 |title=Deutscher Fachjournalisten-Kongress in Berlin: Dr. Mercedes Bunz erhält Fachjournalisten-Preis 2010 |date=4 November 2010 |access-date=11 June 2011 }}</ref> In 2011 she held the Impakt Fellowship of the Centre for the Humanities from the Utrecht University. She has written for the German internet magazines ''Telepolis''<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.heise.de/tp/autor/mercedesbunz/default.html |title=Artikel von Mercedes Bunz |publisher=Telepolis |access-date=11 June 2011 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110425051104/http://www.heise.de/tp/autor/mercedesbunz/default.html |archivedate=25 April 2011 }}</ref> and {{ill|Carta (blog)|lt=Carta|de|Carta (Publikation)}}.
Her book on the impact of algorithms on society was published by Suhrkamp in 2012.<ref>{{cite web |first=Mercedes |last=Bunz |url=http://www.suhrkamp.de/buecher/digitale_wahrheiten-mercedes_bunz_26043.html |title=Digitale Wahrheiten |publisher=Suhrkamp Verlag |access-date=2 January 2012}}</ref> An updated version of ''Mercedes Bunz: The Silent Revolution: How Digitalization Transforms Knowledge, Work, Journalism and Politics without Making Too Much Noise'' came out with Palgrave Macmillan in 2014.<ref>{{cite book |url=http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137373496 |title=The Silent Revolution: How Digitalization Transforms Knowledge, Work, Journalism and Politics without Making Too Much Noise |work=SpringerLink |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |access-date=25 February 2016}}</ref> The Spanish version "La Revolución Silenciosa" has been translated by Cruce and came out in 2017.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.traficantes.net/libros/revolucion-silenciosa |title=Mercedes Bunz: La Revolución Silenciosa |publisher=Cruce Casa |access-date=2 September 2018}}</ref>
She has been a member of the Interdisciplinary Network for the Critical Humanities ''Terra Critica''<ref>{{cite web |url=http://terracritica.net/people/ |title=Terra Critica |date=2 August 2017 |access-date=24 January 2018}}</ref> and is a co-founder of meson press,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://meson.press/|title=Meson Press |access-date=24 January 2018}}</ref> an open access press that publishes research on digital cultures, technology and networked media, one outcome of the Hybrid Publishing Lab, Leuphana University, which she directed from 2012-2014.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.leuphana.de/kooperationen/regional/digitale-medien/hybrid-publishing.html|title=Hybrid Publishing |access-date=24 January 2018}}</ref>
She became Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster, London in 2014.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.westminster.ac.uk/news/dr-mercedes-bunz-presents-ai-research-to-the-house-of-lords-select-committee|title=University of Westminster: Dr Mercedes Bunz presents AI research to the House of Lord's Select Committee |access-date=17 August 2019}}</ref> In 2018, her book written together with Graham Meikle on the internet of things came out with Polity, in which they explore questions regarding networked sensors and Artificial Intelligence as things become media.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509517459|title=The Internet of Things|publisher=Polity Press|access-date=24 January 2018}}</ref>
On 31 October 2017 Mercedes Bunz gave evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee for Artificial Intelligence and presented her Artificial Intelligence research<ref>{{cite web |url=http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/artificial-intelligence-committee/artificial-intelligence/oral/73546.html|title=House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence: Corrected oral evidence Tuesday 31 October 2017|access-date=17 August 2019}}</ref> on the importance of publicly available datasets given the rise of machine learning that has been taken up in the report.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201719/ldselect/ldai/100/100.pdf|title=House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence: Report of Session 2017–19 'AI in the UK: ready, willing and able?'|access-date=17 August 2019}}</ref> In September 2018 she started working at the Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London.,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/mercedes-bunz|title=King's College London, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Department of Digital Humanities: Staff. |access-date=2 September 2018}}</ref> where she is Professor of Digital Culture and Society since 2022. In 2019 her co-written book on digital communication and machine communication was co-published (open access) by University of Minnesota Press and meson press.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://meson.press/books/communication/|title=Communication|date=2019 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press & meson press|doi=10.14619/1464 |access-date=17 August 2019 |last1=Bialski |first1=Paula |last2=Brunton |first2=Finn |last3=Bunz |first3=Mercedes |isbn=978-3-95796-146-4 }}</ref>
==Writings== * Mercedes Bunz: ''Vom Speicher zum Verteiler – Die Geschichte des Internet''. Kulturverlag Kadmos, Berlin 2008, {{ISBN|978-3-86599-025-9}}. * {{Cite news|url=https://www.faz.net/1.581573|title=Logik der Technik: Das Denken und die Digitalisierung|last=Bunz|first=Mercedes|work=FAZ.NET|access-date=2018-11-29|language=de|issn=0174-4909}} * Mercedes Bunz: ''Die stille Revolution – Wie Algorithmen Wissen, Arbeit, Öffentlichkeit und Politik verändern, ohne dabei viel Lärm zu machen''. Suhrkamp Verlag, edition unseld 43, Berlin 2012, {{ISBN|978-3518260432}}. ** Mercedes Bunz: ''The Silent Revolution: How Digitalization Transforms Knowledge, Work, Journalism and Politics without Making Too Much Noise''. Palgrave Macmillan, London 2014, {{ISBN|978-1-137-37350-2}}. * Mercedes Bunz: ''[http://crucecasaeditora.com.ar/la-revolucion-silenciosa/ La revolución silenciosa. Cómo los algoritmos transforman el conocimiento, el trabajo, la opinión pública y la política sin hacer mucho ruido]''. Cruce Casa Editora, Buenos Aires 2017, {{ISBN|978-987-45637-7-4}}. * Mercedes Bunz and Graham Meikle: ''The Internet of Things''. Polity Press, London 2018, {{ISBN|978-1509517466}}. * Paula Bialski, Finn Brunton and Mercedes Bunz: ''Communication''. University of Minnesota Press & meson press, Minneapolis 2019, {{ISBN|978-1517906474}}.
==References== {{reflist|30em}}
==External links== * {{DNB-Portal|133982033}} * [http://mercedesbunz.net/ Official blog] * [http://crucecasaeditora.com.ar/mercedes-bunz/ Bunz´s profile at Cruce Casa Editora –Spanish–]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bunz, Mercedes}} Category:1971 births Category:Living people Category:German women journalists Category:21st-century German journalists Category:Mass media theorists Category:Online journalists Category:German women philosophers Category:German art historians Category:German women art historians Category:20th-century German historians Category:20th-century German philosophers Category:20th-century German women writers Category:21st-century German historians Category:21st-century German philosophers Category:21st-century German women writers Category:Writers from Magdeburg Category:German magazine editors Category:German women magazine editors Category:Academic staff of Bielefeld University