Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Chair for the History of Science

→ Vita

→ Research projects

→ Publications

Vita

Sarine Waltenspül is a media scholar and historian of science and technology, who also works as a filmmaker and curator. Her current research interests include scientific film, cultural heritage under the condition of the digital, visuality and knowledge, as well as practice-oriented research approaches.

Sarine studied philosophy, art history, and cultural analysis/cultural history and theory, at the Universities of Basel, Zurich, and Humboldt University of Berlin. She earned her doctorate in media studies and has held research positions at Zurich University of the Arts, the MECS/Leuphana University of Lüneburg, the Collegium Helveticum/ETH Zurich, and the Humboldt-University of Berlin. Additionally, she was an archival fellow at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, a HERMES scholar (Humanities Education in Research, Data, and Methods), and an interim professor at the University of Basel.

She has co-led and led various research projects and is currently the principal investigator of the project Visualpedia. ‘Atlas Encyclopaedia Cinematographica’ and the Visual Science and Technology Studies (2022–2026, SNSF) at the University of Lucerne. The interfaces developed within this project, in collaboration with Moritz Greiner-Petter and Mario Schulze, were awarded the Neu-Whitrow Prize by the International Union for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology in 2025. She co-curated the exhibition String Figures. A Research Exhibition at Museum Tinguely Basel (2024/25), and co-directed the essay film Unlearning Flow (2019), which was nominated for awards at the International Short Film Festival Winterthur and Kasseler Dokfest.

In 2024, her book Modelle im Film. Eine kleine Kinogeschichte was published by diaphanes. Her forthcoming second book, Fließend. Geschichte, Ästhetik und Politik des wissenschaftlichen Films, co-authored with Mario Schulze, will be published by Konstanz University Press in October 2025.

Research Projects

Visualpedia. ‚Atlas Encyclopaedia Cinematographica‘ and the Visual Science and Technology Studies

For decades, scholars have aspired to elevate film to the status of scientific publications—recognized as research outputs, accessible in libraries, and citable in scholarly texts. Today, this vision seems more attainable than ever: digitally born videos are published online, analog collections undergo digitization, and non-textual media are made reliably citable through permanent links.

The Visualpedia project uses the historical film collection Encyclopaedia Cinematographica to trace the evolution of films as research tools and publications, from their analog origins to their digital present. The project consists of two sub-projects. The first involves a historical-critical examination of the film encyclopedia’s history, from its roots in the National Socialist era to its current digital form. This sub-project explores the films’ provenance, the encyclopedia’s conceptual framework, the collection’s disciplinary nuances, and the ethics of presentation.

Building on this foundation, the second sub-project takes a more collaborative and practical approach. It addresses the challenge of responsibly activating a partially sensitive collection—one that is both tremendous and captivating in scope and content—for research and public engagement. As a contribution to Critical Digital Humanities, Moritz Greiner-Petter is developing various interfaces for this purpose. In 2024/2025, the exhibition Fadenspiele/String Figures. A Research Exhibition, developed within the project and curated by Mario Schulze and Sarine Waltenspül, was shown at Museum Tinguely in Basel. The exhibition focused, among other things, on the ethnological section of the Encyclopaedia Cinematographica.

Project team: Moritz Greiner-Petter, Mario Schulze, Sarine Waltenspül

Exhibition: https://www.tinguely.ch/en/exhibitions/exhibitions/2024/fadenspiele.html

Fig.: Dunia Lingner (formerly Gertrud Beriger) with the string figures d'Deifelshörnli (devil's horns): on the left in the 1969 Encyclopaedia Cinemaographica film E 1736 Central Europe, Basel-Land - String Figures by Hans-Rudolf Haefelfinger (published in 1975, provided by the TIB); on the right in an interview from 2024 (Piet Esch, Point de Vue). With the kind permission by the performer. 

Selected Publications

Monographs

• Mario Schulze, Sarine Waltenspül. 2025. Fließend. Geschichte, Ästhetik und Politik des wissenschaftlichen Films. Konstanz University Press. (forthcoming)
• Sarine Waltenspül. 2023. Modelle im Film. Eine kleine Kinogeschichte. Zürich/Berlin: Diaphanes.

Chapters and Articles

• Sarine Waltenspül. 2025. „Who Owns the Images? Who Shows the Images? A Film of String Figures in a Web of Relationships.“ In: Mario Schulze, Sarine Waltenspül. (eds.): String Figures. A Cultural Practice between Art, Anthropology, and Theory. Zürich: Diaphanes, 93–122.
• Mario Schulze, Sarine Waltenspül. 2025. „Introduction.“ In: dies. (Hg.): String Figures. A Cultural Practice between Art, Anthropology, and Theory. Zürich: Diaphanes, 7–45.
• Sarine Waltenspül. 2024. „Geschichtsvergessene Digitalisierung. Nationalsozialistische Provenienzen wissenschaftlich-technischer Filme aus der Sammlung des IWF.“ Technikgeschichte 91/2, 139–174.
• Sarine Waltenspül. 2021. „Reusable and Nonreusable Films: From Ballistic Films to the Encyclopaedia Cinematographica.“ Isis 112/2, 342–351.
• Gabriele Gramelsberger, Alexander Friedrich, Sarine Waltenspül. 2021. „Wissenschaftslabore als artifizielle Zeitkonfigurationsräume. Zeitdehnung, Zeittransformation und Zeitkonservierung.“ Jahrbuch für Technikphilosophie, Zeit und Technik (Sonderheft), 163–193.
• Anja Sattelmacher, Mario Schulze, Sarine Waltenspül. 2021. „Introduction: Reusing Research Film and the Institute for Scientific Film.“ Isis 112/2, 291–298.
• Mario Schulze, Sarine Waltenspül. 2019. „From Images of Lines to Images of Particles. The Role of the Film Camera in Flow Visualization.“ Yearbook of Moving Image Studies 4, 166–191.

As Editor

• Estelle Blaschke, Mario Schulze, Sarine Waltenspül (eds.). Visual STS. A Reader. Zürich: Intercom. (forthcoming)
• Mario Schulze, Sarine Waltenspül (eds.). 2025. String Figures. A Cultural Practice between Art, Anthropology, and Theory. Zürich/Berlin: Diaphanes.
• Tobias Becker, Dennis Jelonnek, Teresa Fankhänel, Sarine Waltenspül (eds.). 2023. Der konstruierende Blick. Fotografisches Entwerfen in der Architektur. Berlin: Schlaufen Verlag.
• Anja Sattelmacher, Mario Schulze, Sarine Waltenspül (eds.). 2021. Focus: Research Film. Isis 112/2.