-1 Séances #2: Desire&Technology Reading Group

What does it mean to desire in a world full of algorithms? How can ‘desire’ and ‘technology’ be used to rethink our relationship with ourselves, others, and the wider environment? In the second session of –1 Séances: Desire&Technology, a six-part reading and discussion series by –1 Digital Lab, the reading group will explore ‘the techno-logics of desire’.

In this session, the philosophers and co-founders of the journal La Deleuziana, Sara Baranzoni and Paolo Vignola, will explore the tension between two rarely overlapping bodies of thought. When technology is placed at the centre of analysis, desire is pushed to the background. Within philosophies of desire, where desire is viewed as a radical and fundamental force, technology is considered an external factor with which desire interacts, rather than something that shapes desire itself.

By revisiting Bernard Stiegler’s On Pharmacology and Félix Guattari's Machinic Heterogenesis, Vignola and Baranzoni move away from this divide to develop ‘libidinal ecology’: a concept that imagines new forms of desire in an increasingly automated, perhaps desireless, society. The session is open to anyone curious about these questions, regardless of their background in theory or philosophy.

No familiarity with theory or philosophy is required to attend and participate during the open portion of this event.

About -1 Digital Lab & –1 Séances
–1 Digital Lab is an experimental space and research studio for digital culture located in the basement of the Nieuwe Instituut. In 2026, –1 Digital Lab is exploring the provocative intersection of technology and desire through the six-part reading and discussion series –1 Séances: Desire&Technology.

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Host or Publisher Nieuwe Instituut