Online Conference - Gilbert Simondon, 15-16 October
ISHPSS
From: Daniela Voss <voss...@GMAIL.COM>
We would like to announce the following international
conference, which we hope will be of interest.
Conference "Gilbert Simondon: Ecological, aesthetic and technological modes of existence"
15 – 16 October 2021
Gilbert Simondon is known as a philosopher of technology.
Yet in his principal book on that subject he reflects on the
"entire genesis implicating man and the world of which the
genesis of technicity is perhaps only a small part" (MEOT
168). His book Individuation in Light of Notions of Form
and Information (1958), recently translated into
English, reveals him in turn as a philosopher of nature. In
lecture courses, Simondon reflects on further topics such as
aesthetics and psychology of perception, imagination and
invention. The challenge is to show to what extent
Simondon’s theories – of technology, nature and culture –
are interrelated.
The conference aims to study the interconnections between
the different aspects of Simondon’s philosophy – the various
"modes of existence" to which he devoted considerable
reflection. Its basic premise is the one that Simondon
himself can be seen to have accepted as essential, that
technology and its development are not an independent
reality but encounter science and ethics, religious and
aesthetic thought within a regulative system that Simondon
names "Culture". Cultural objects fulfil the double role of
mediating the relation between human beings and their
natural as well as social milieu.
Simondon sees a role for philosophy in thinking the
imbrication of these different modes of existence and
fostering mutual exchange and communication between them.
How can we think the relation between ecological,
technological and aesthetic modes of existence? In what ways
are they distinct in terms of structures and operations? In
what ways are they engaged in a form of co-evolution? How
might it be possible to reduce the fragmentation of human
knowledge and experience and foster integration, in
particular the reintegration of technical developments into
cultural understanding?
Organised at the University of Hildesheim within the context of the Research Training Group ‘Aesthetic Practice’, funded by the DFG, this conference brings together international scholars from various disciplines to discuss Simondon’s thought and its relevance today in the light of possible "symbiotic" forms of ecological, aesthetic and technological modes of existence
Program
10:00–10:15 am Welcome by Anne Sauvagnargues, Daniela Voss
10:15–11:00 am Anne Sauvagnargues (Paris-Nanterre University): “Modulation according to Simondon”
11:00–11:45 am Anne Lefebvre (ENS Paris-Saclay): “"The Image as a Conduit Between the Dimensions of Simondon’s Thought”
11:45 am–12:00 pm Coffee break
12:00–12:45 pm Andrea Bardin (Oxford Brookes University): “What is a ‘Medium’? The Transindividual Entanglement of Technology, Nature and Culture”
12:45–13:30 pm Heike Delitz (Otto-Friedrich University Bamberg): “Gilbert Simondon as Thinker of the Social”
13:30–14:30 pm Lunch break
14:30–15:15 pm Cécile Malaspina (King's College London): “Thinking about Relation and Disadaptation with Simondon: Predicaments and Strategies of Cultural Renewal”
15:15–16:00 pm Olivier Del Fabbro (ETH Zurich): “Teaching and Training Models in Artificial Intelligence: Technical Education in Gilbert Simondon, John Dewey and Machine Learning”
Saturday, 16 October
10:00–10:50 am Yuk Hui (City University of Hong Kong): “Simondon among the Cyberneticians”
10:50–11:35 am Daniela Voss (University of Hildesheim): “Gilbert Simondon and Different Senses of ‘Evolution’”
11:35–11:45 am Coffee Break
11:45 am–12:15 pm Freya Häberlein (University of Hildesheim): “Machines and Evolution. The Becoming of Technics in the Works of Gilbert Simondon and Lynn Margulis”
12:15–12:45 pm Tom Luc (University of Hildesheim): “Mechanology and Literature: Simondon as Technical Poet”
12:45–13:45 pm Lunch break
13:45–14:15 pm Jim Schrub (Paris-Nanterre University): “Transductive Hermeticism and the Digital: The Contours of a Difficult Concept”
Best wishes,