Neural Capitalism: How Technology Shapes Your Brain

Do you ever feel that your phone, your feeds, or your work environment are quietly shaping how you think?

Have you noticed your attention shifting — your focus, your memory, even your mood?

And do you wonder what this means for the kind of person you’re becoming, and the kind of world we are collectively creating?

In this lecture, Warren Neidich explores how our rapidly changing technological environments are reshaping the human brain itself. Drawing on ideas from Fredric Jameson and Bernard Stiegler, he examines neural capitalism: a phase in which technology directly engages our neuroplasticity, shaping how we perceive, think, and act.

But this co-evolution also opens a horizon of hope. Neidich imagines the eco-planetary sapien — a new kind of human whose cognitive capacities are attuned to ecological, planet-friendly technologies rather than extractive ones.

Across four acts, the lecture introduces the Brain Without Organs, shows how brains and tools evolve together, and speculates how new forms of thought and imagination could emerge to meet the challenges of our world.

After the lecture, a panel discussion will follow with Ivana Ivković, Andrej Radman, and Leon Heuts (see below for biographies).

Collaborate on an art installation

The following day, Neidich will host an intimate workshop for a small group of students. The lecture and workshop are also connected to a vacancy for two student assistants who will collaborate with Neidich to create an installation for the For Love of the World festival on 21 March 2025.

A visionary, accessible exploration of how new environments may give rise to new minds.

Warren Neidich is a conceptual artist and theorist whose work examines how technology, cognition, and politics intersect. His installations and writings have been featured at institutions such as the Whitney Museum, MoMA PS1, the Venice Biennale, and the Centre Pompidou. He is the founder of The Psychopathologies of Cognitive Capitalism conference series and co-director of the Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art.

Andrej Radman (1968) is Assistant Professor of Architecture Philosophy and Theory at TU Delft and coordinator of the Ecologies of Architecture research group. His work focuses on the relationship between architecture and radical empiricism. He is the author of Ecologies of Architecture: Essays on Territorialisation (EUP, 2021) and received the Mark Cousins Theory Award in 2023 for his forward-thinking contributions to architectural theory.

Ivana Ivković (1974, Belgrade) is a political philosopher and founder of No Wishful Thinking, a bureau applying philosophy to contemporary social and political issues. Based in the Netherlands since 1993 and educated in Tilburg, she works across academia, media, and the public sphere, focusing on themes such as populism, citizenship, and public space. She also teaches political philosophy in arts and theatre programs and organizes philosophical events, including the Performance Philosophy Biennale 2019.

Leon Heuts (1969) is a journalist and philosopher, and currently Head of Studium Generale at TU Delft.

In collaboration with BK Talks: In Conversation

Photo: Olivia Fougeirol

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Host or Publisher Studium Generale TU Delft