Life – Information – Technology. Transdisciplinary Perspectives on the Work of Gilbert Simondon
Given his incessant movement across traditional disciplinary boundaries between philosophy, psychology, physics, biology, aesthetics, and engineering, one might suspect Gilbert Simondon to be a household name in and throughout contemporary academic discourses. Has not the century, one might ask, in certain ways, become Simondonian? And yet, despite a growing number of translations and editions, to date, Simondon’s work remains relatively unknown to larger audiences.
Organized within the context of Humboldt University’s interdisciplinary laboratory Image Knowledge Gestaltung, this conference aims to showcase both the full scope of Simondon’s work itself and the variety of ways in which it can be approached today, between and across disciplines. It brings together international scholars from various backgrounds in order to to discover and discuss the importance and the theoretical and practical potential of this singular figure in French philosophy within a transdisciplinary perspective.
For these purposes, Simondon’s ideas will not only be interrogated within the scientific, technological, philosophical, and political horizons of his time, they will moreover, along with the conceptual tools they provide, be examined through the lens of problems posed by contemporary conditions. The conference will thus shed light on both the genesis and the timeliness of Simondon’s philosophy, combining individual and panelled presentations by renowned and emerging scholars with workshop sections that open up a space for discussions regarding the relevance, the translation and the reception of Simondonian ideas in an interconnected and technologically conditioned world.
All contributions will be in English.
Participants:
Andrea Bardin (Brunel University London)
Michael Cuntz (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar)
Olivier del Fabbro (ETH Zürich)
Erich Hörl (Leuphana Universität Lüneburg)
Yuk Hui (Leuphana Universität Lüneburg)
Anne Lefebvre (Collège International de Philosophie / ENSASE)
Sacha Loeve (Université de Technologie de Compiègne)
Cécile Malaspina (Paris 7)
Marc Rölli (Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig)
Anne Sauvagnargues (Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense)
Martín Savransky (University College London)
Kaja Tulatz (TU Darmstadt)
Organised by:
Moritz Gansen
Anne Lefebvre
Samo Tomšič
Updated Programme:
Thursday, 3 December 2015:
16.30 Introduction
16.45 Marc Rölli: Cybernetics without Control. Reflections on the Man Machine
Chair: Melanie Sehgal
17.45 Martín Savransky: A Transductive Empiricism: Sociology, Ethics, Spirituality
Kaja Tulatz: From ”Phenomenotechnique” to a Phenomenology of Technology. Limits and Prospects of Gaston Bachelard’s Epistemology as a Starting Point for Simondon
Chair: Anne Lefebvre
19.00 Coffee Break
19.15 Sacha Loeve: Concrete and Abstract Machines in Recent Bio-Nano-Technology
Chair: Michael Friedman
20.15 Drinks
Friday, 4 December 2015:
11.00 Anne Sauvagnargues: Ecology of the Image: Technics and Individuation
Chair: Claudia Blümle
12.00 Olivier del Fabbro: Operation, Structure and Act. Simondon’s Concept of the Allagmatic
Yuk Hui: What Is a Margin of Indetermination?
Chair: Moritz Gansen
13.15 Lunch Break
14.45 Andrea Bardin: The Tradition of Invention: Philosophy as a Political Techne in Gilbert Simondon Chair: Samo Tomsic
15.45 Translation and Transduction of Concepts between Languages and Disciplines
Conception: Cécile Malaspina and Moritz Gansen
Panel: Yuk Hui, Cécile Malaspina and Anne Sauvagnargues
17.15 Coffee Break
17.45 Erich Hörl: Technocenic Speculations. Simondon’s Thinking of the Living and General Ecology
Chair: Angelika Seppi
18.45 Anne Lefebvre: Invention and Life after Canguilhem. The Contribution of Simondon’s General Ecology to Contemporary Debates
Chair: Cécile Malaspina
20.00 Closing Remarks
20.30 Dinner
Location: Image Knowledge Gestaltung. An Interdisciplinary Laboratory | Sophienstraße 22A, 10178 Berlin
