[Commlist] CfA: artifices: technology, thought, art, the 6th Ereignis Conference

artifices — technology, thought, art
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CfA: artifices: technology, thought, art, the 6th Ereignis Conference, 
August 8 and 9

Please distribute widely.

* The 6th interdisciplinary Ereignis conference in Gdynia, Poland, 
August 8 and 9, 2026.
* This conference offers a hybrid option for those unable to attend in 
person.
* Submission deadline: 1 June, 2026 (guidelines below).

Our contemporary world is increasingly enamored by artificiality, yet 
the Artificial Intelligence moniker of the latest dot-com bubble 
triggers profound anxieties. The idea that we can create an artificial 
intelligence by way of machinic technology is by no means novel in the 
history of culture. In the Iliad, for example, Homer speaks of 
Hephaestus‘ “handmaidens wrought of gold in the semblance of living 
maids”, characteristic by their intelligence, speech and strength. To 
Aristotle, _technê_ was a craft grounded in knowledge, and in this sense 
AI is precisely a product of practice, an art. Thus, it can be argued 
that artificial is our use of encyclopedias, as much of our use of 
chatbots who in turn perform database searches on our behalf. Should not 
thinking machines, wrought by our own technological mastery, be a solace 
and relief?

Clearly, our concerns with AI and the potential chaos brought about by 
Large Language Models (LLMs) are significant and diverse. We know that 
LLMs can have environmental, social, juridical, and economic effects 
that are poorly understood, but potentially cataclysmic in force. 
**artifices**, the 6th Ereignis Conference, seeks to bring together 
thinking from across philosophy, social theory, and psycho-analysis to 
shed light on the complex emergence of AI. We approach artifice in its 
broadest sense: as that which is derived, non-originary, or external to 
traditional notions of the authentic. Relevant areas of examination and 
contestation are whether AI should be considered as generating a novel 
kind of alterity, prompting us to ask whether the Other is being reduced 
to a zero degree of algorithmization or manifesting as a radical new 
ethical encounter. Further, we can ask whether LLMs should be viewed not 
merely as models of cognition but as schizoanalytic desiring-machines 
that actively reorganize the circuits of human affect, labor, and 
planetary life. This necessitates a fundamental questioning of the 
natural/artificial distinction itself; by deconstructing this binary, we 
reveal how our anxieties regarding the cyborg reflect a deeper lack, 
forcing us to confront the structural brokenness of a humanity that has 
always been technologically mediated.

This conference invites new ways of positioning “thinking machines” in 
relation to humans through the lenses of alterity, psychoanalysis, and 
schizoanalysis. We seek to explore AI not as a mere model of cognition, 
but as a machinic assemblage that reorganizes desire, labor, and 
planetary forms of life. Drawing on the tension between the Other as a 
source of alienation (Sartre) and a source of creation (Levinas), we ask 
how AI functions as a Big Other or as an instansiation of the symbolic 
order. Beyond simple ethics or regulation, we aim to address the 
“cyborging” of humanity and the political task of philosophy -- moving 
toward a post-Lacanian and Deleuzian understanding of how modes of life 
and care can be composed within the shadow of the machinic earth.

### Key Questions

We invite papers from across disciplines that engage one or more of 
these questions:

* Can we consider AI as a manifestation of Alterity itself, or does the 
algorithmic reduction of the Other eliminate the very possibility of 
unconditional hospitality?
* How does the symbolic distinction between the “natural” body and the 
“artificial” cyborg create new circuits of desire and lack, and what are 
the effects of embracing this structural ambiguity?
* In what ways does AI act as a desiring-machine (Deleuze/Guattari) that 
reconfigures perception, affects, and the production of subjectivity 
beyond the thermodynamics of information?
* Can we trace a philosophical archaeology (Agamben/Stiegler) of the 
thinking machine to dismantle the binary logic currently populating the 
debate on automation?
* Does AI serve as the ultimate source of the self’s alienation, or can 
it be the site where the self is constituted through a new encounter 
with a machinic Stranger?
* How can we move beyond the “broken” personality to develop a ludic, 
post-humanist analysis of AI that focuses on planetary co-existence and 
new modes of care?

### Invitation

We invite papers from all traditions and schools of philosophy and 
adjoining discipline (critical and social theory, psycho-analysis and 
schizoanalysis, media studies and arts, literary theory and comparative 
literature, etc.) to address any of the topics and questions above. 
Submissions should be structured, well-argued, and show evidence of 
rigorous scholarship. Include an abstract (max. 300 words) and a short 
author bio (max. 50 words).

Submit abstracts by **June 1, 2026** through our online submission 
engine at ereignis.no. We will return by mid June with a notification on 
acceptance.

### Hybrid format

The conference will be held on-site in Gdynia, Poland, on August 8 and 
9, 2026, and on-line on the Zoom videoconferencing platform for those 
unable to attend in person. More information about travel and 
accommodation is available on the conference page. For accepted papers, 
registration will be required by July 1, 2026.

### Confirmed keynote speaker

* Prof. Sandra Meeuwsen, Erasmus University Rotterdam
* More keynotes TBA

### Sessions

Papers are timed to 20 minutes and followed by a Q&A with the audience. 
Each session is moderated.

### Publishing opportunities

All authors are encouraged to submit essay-versions of their 
presentation to a themed issue of our peer-reviewed journal, 
*Inscriptions*. Deadline for submitting full-text essays will be October 
15, 2026. Note that this journal has its own criteria for submission, 
review and publication. For more information, see the journal‘s about page.

### Deadline for submission

Submit abstracts by **June 1, 2026** through our online submission 
engine. We will return to you with a notification on acceptance. 
Registration is required.

### Conference fee

* General attendance: €180 (standard fee).
* Reduced fee: €120 (students and the unwaged).

### Scholastic committee

* Dr. Torgeir Fjeld, Ereignis Center for Philosophy and the Arts (chair)
* Dr. Gorica Orsholits, European Graduate School
* Prof. Dror Pimentel, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem
* Prof. Em. Jørgen Veisland, University of Gdańsk

### Organisers

This event is hosted by Ereignis Center for Philosophy and the Arts and 
Inscriptions — a journal for contemporary thinking on art, philosophy 
and psycho-analysis.

More information about travelling to Gdynia, Poland, visa requirements, 
accommodation, and some information for those travelling with families 
is available on the conference page: <https://conference.ereignis.no/>.


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