Volker Grassmuck is a German sociologist and media researcher
Education
Volker Grassmuck visited Herschelschool in Hannover, spent a year at Ridgewood High in New Jersey and finished his Abitur back at Herschelschool in 1980. There he studied sociology, journalism, information science and psychology at the Freie Universität Berlin.
Career
He started studying sociology in 1981 in Groningen, Netherlands at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen but changed to Berlin in 1982. In the mid-1980s he worked alongside his studies publicist and founded the "JetSet Verlags GmbH" in 1984, which published the magazine "V max - Zeitschrift auf der Überholspur". He also worked at the local radio station "Radio 100" as editor for the radio show "Nachtflug".
Grassmuck started his academic career in 1987 with contributions to a research project and also graduated his study and started studying Japanese at the Freie Universität Berlin as well.
From 1989 he did research at the Socio-technological Research Department of Tokyo University. From 1991 he published a column in the "konpyûta kagaku" (Shujunsha) and worked as a video-editor for American Broadcasting Company News.
1992 found him as a newscaster at Radio Japan, Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai and worked as a freelancer for InterCommunication Magazine, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Shuppansha. At the university he researched networks with Doctor Kubota Akihiro.
Grassmuck returned to Berlin in 1995, starting, together with others, "mikro est
V." in 1998, a project for connecting Berlin"s media cultures. He worked together with Professor Doctor Wolfang Coy on a German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) research project on "Von der Ordnung des Wissens zur Wissensordnung digitaler Medien" ("From the system of knowledge to the knowledge system of digital media") at the Humboldt Universität.
He earned a doctorate at the Freie Universität Berlin on Japanese media history with the topic "Closed Society.
Media and discursive aspects of Japan"s "three openings"". In 2000/2001 he became a replacement professor for media art at the Universität Graphik und Buchkunst in Leipzig.
Grassmuck organized the conference Wizards of Operating system which topics included operating systems, open sources and open contents. He holds regular lectures at congresses of the German Chaos Computer Club and is engaged in new forms of copyright like Wissensallemende or GNU.