[Commlist] CfA: Technological Cosmologies in the Mediterranean: Myths, Religion, Hype, and Future Imagination

As part of the first international conference organised by STS-CAT, “STS 
Encounters in the Mediterranean, <https://www.sts-cat.org/?page_id=128>” 
taking place in Barcelona on *3–5 February 2027*, we are inviting 
abstracts for the panel “*Technological Cosmologies in the 
Mediterranean: Myths, Religion, Hype, and Future Imagination, *convened 
by**Andreu Belsunces, Hernán Borisonik.

Please find the panel description and submission details below.*
*
Silicon Valley’s narratives of AI salvation, crypto-messianism, and 
apocalyptic risk have become global exports. But they do not land on 
empty ground. In the Mediterranean (a region defined by long-standing 
overlapping religious traditions, colonial and post-colonial memory, 
informal economies, migration circuits, and a great variety of practices 
of translation and syncretism) these technological cosmologies are 
reworked and filtered through local systems of belief and survival.

This panel investigates the emergence of new forms of technological 
religiosity: a new symbolic order forming around artificial 
intelligence, blockchain systems, cryptocurrencies, and algorithmic 
governance. We analyse these entities not as mere tools, but as 
converging imaginaries and infrastructures that concentrate classical 
sacred dimensions such as belief, revelation, prophecy, ritual 
adherence, and the ambivalent promise of salvation and annihilation. 
Through cycles of hype, speculation, and technological anticipation, 
these systems increasingly function as modern deities and demons – 
opaque, autonomous, and authoritative actors whose black-boxed «wills» 
must be interpreted by engineers, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and users.

This new wave of technological mystification and re-enchantment returns 
us to older forms of world-making, ranging from anthropomorphism and 
superstition to sophisticated forms of theology and visioneering. At the 
same time, it reinforces the quasi-religious foundations of modernity: 
the invisible hand of the market, the inevitability of progress, 
techno-solutionism, and apocalyptic imaginaries of collapse and 
redemption. Particularly visible in contemporary Silicon Valley, 
narratives surrounding AI increasingly invoke themes of existential 
risk, transcendence, salvation, and doom, while crypto ecosystems have 
generated communities of believers organised around techno-libertarian 
doctrines of decentralisation, sovereignty, and monetary redemption. 
These narratives mobilise resources, coordinate expectations (and 
investment), and legitimise emerging forms of political and economic 
authority.

We are interested in how hype, belief, and infrastructure script 
technological futures, redistribute agency between humans and 
non-humans, and shape regimes of value, trust, and legitimacy. We intend 
to analyse moments where speculative finance, engineering imaginaries, 
and religious narratives produce new political forms, derived from 
governance mythologies. We also seek to understand how these formations 
contribute to the contestation or stabilisation of tech oligarchy by 
naturalising and challenging particular concentrations of power through 
narratives of inevitability and technological destiny. How do these 
global imaginaries interact with local systems of trust (from baraka to 
clientelism, from saint veneration to state scepticism)? And what new 
hybrid forms emerge when techno-religious promises land in places where 
promises have historically been met with caution? The panel is 
especially interested in the interaction between those Silicon Valley 
myths and Mediterranean cultures. Historically characterised by 
overlapping religious traditions, mythological imaginaries, mercantile 
exchanges, and hybrid cosmologies, the Mediterranean offers a privileged 
site for examining how global technological narratives are translated, 
appropriated, contested, and recombined with local systems of belief. 
Rather than treating emerging technologies as universal phenomena, we 
seek contributions that explore how technological cosmologies interact 
with situated traditions, religious practices, political cultures, and 
collective memories, producing distinctive configurations of authority, 
faith, scepticism, and belonging.

We welcome contributions that:

● Examine the myths, deities, rituals, narratives, and prophecies 
surrounding AI, blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and algorithmic systems;
● Analyse the role of hype, speculation, and technological expectations 
in the production of collective belief and legitimacy;
● Investigate narratives of salvation, apocalypse, existential risk, and 
technological destiny;
● Explore crypto-messianism, AI governance mythologies, 
techno-libertarian communities, and other forms of technological faith;
● Examine how technological cosmologies interact with Mediterranean 
cultures, religious traditions, and local systems of belief;
● Analyse the relationship between technological imaginaries, 
infrastructures, and the consolidation and contestation of tech oligarchy.

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