[PHILOS-L] Henning Schmidgen on Machinic Normativity - hybrid lecture - 1.7. 6pm, Hamburg

[Fröberg, Lieke]

Dear Colleagues,

 

How do machines shape the way we live, think, and interact? In his lecture on 1 July 2026, Prof. Dr. Henning Schmidgen explores Félix Guattari’s idea of "machinic normativity" and its relevance today. He shows why this thinking is particularly relevant for the analysis and critique of an increasingly digitalized capitalism. We warmly invite you to this lecture:

 

1 July 2026 | 18:15 – 19:45 CEST | hybrid: on-site at ESA 1, O 221 or via webinar

Machinic Normativity
Prof. Dr. Henning Schmidgen
Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, DE

Registration for the webinar is handled via the program page.

Upcoming and final talk of this semester:

08 July 2026 | 18:15 - 19:45 CEST | hybrid: on-site at ESA 1, O 221 or via webinar

The Influence of AI on Democracy
Prof. Dr. Tilo Wesche
Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, DE

 

Kind regards,

Judith Simon & the team EIT

 

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About the lecture
"Machinic normativity" refers to the biologically based and socially mediated ability to use interactions between humans and machines to shape our social life. This paper spells out how psychoanalyst,  philosopher, and political activist Félix Guattari (1930–1992) developed this idea across his publications—from his early commitment to radical psychiatry to his collaboration with Gilles Deleuze and his plea for new forms of ecology. In these contexts, Guattari highlighted the importance of the quasi-cinematic interplay between perception and movement, reflection and action, observation and design. The paper shows why this thinking is particularly relevant for the analysis and critique of an increasingly digitalized capitalism.

About the speaker
Henning Schmidgen is Professor of Media Studies and History of Science at Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany. He studied psychology as well as philosophy and linguistics in Berlin (Free University) and Paris (Université de Paris-VII). In 1996, he obtained his PhD in psychology at the Free University Berlin with a study dealing with the „Unconscious of Machines.“ From 1997 to 2011, he was postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Dept. III, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger). Among his books are The Helmholtz-Curves (2014), The Guattari Tapes (Leipzig 2019) and Horn, or The Counterside of Media (Durham 2022).

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