Author: techsocjal

Szymon Wróbel
(University of Warsaw, Polish Academy of Sciences)

Abstract:
Werner Herzog’s films are marked by the intriguing perspective of a documentarian, who, while observing the disintegration of selected fragments of reality, also observes various incarnations of cruelty. From his early films, Signs of Life (1968), in which a traumatized German paratrooper, enjoying Chopin’s “erratic” music, terrorizes a Greek town by threatening to blow up an ammunition dump; Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), in which an impulsive schemer repudiates the king’s service in an attempt to establish his own kingdom on the El Dorado River, in a world where “God never finished his work”; through The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974), the story of an “orphan of Europe” who has no idea what violence is, even though he himself is killed in an incomprehensible act of insidious violence; Woyzeck (1979), the story of a simple soldier who, like a Gnostic, prophesizes that “everything earthly is evil” and “even money is subject to decay”; to Fitzcarraldo (1982), in which Klaus Kinski plays the role of a dreamer trying to build an opera in the middle of the jungle, and finally Cobra Verde (1987), where an adventurer, a bandit and a loner, a slave trader, once again played by Klaus Kinski, himself becomes a hostage to violence, and an irreversible violence at that. The documentary sense grows in Herzog’s work, and it seems that the observation of acts of destruction, apocalypse, and possible reactions to it is gaining in scope and intensity. Already in the 1977 film La Soufrière – Warten auf eine unausweichliche Katastrophe, Herozg looks at the fate of an island that is part of Guadeloupe, doomed to an “inevitable catastrophe”, which, by the way, does not happen. In the film Bells from the Deep: Faith and Superstition in Russia (1993), the director tells the story of the city of Kitezh, which was submerged in a lake, and the superstitions that arose from this event. In Encounters at the End of the World (2007), Herzog observes an Arctic laboratory that seems to be a bridgehead and a seed of “humanity” preparing to leave the planet Earth after its destruction. Finally, in Lessons of Darkness (1992), Herzog observes from a bird’s eye view the devastated oil fields of Kuwait after the Gulf War. In this film, we hear the question of life without fire – has life without fire become unbearable for us? We also hear the story of a mother of a child trampled during the war who loses his speech and, in his last sentence, complains mutely: “Mommy, I never want to learn to speak again.” During my presentation, I would like to reflect on these various documents of cruelty recorded by Herzog and ask what conclusions should be drawn from them. How can we go beyond a catalogue, an archive of cruelty, beyond simple documentation, and beyond a registration that would be something more than an act of awareness?

Bio:
Szymon Wróbel is a full professor of philosophy at the Faculty of Artes Liberales at the University of Warsaw and the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is the author of numerous books and articles scattered in various scientific journals. His books in English include: Deferring the Self and Grammar and Glamor of Cooperation, published in 2013 and 2015. In Polish: Ćwiczenia z przyjaźni (Exercises in Friendship), Lektury retroaktywne (Retroactive Readings) and Polska pozycja depresyjna (Polish Depressive Position) published by Kraków Publishing House Universitas. In 2016, IFiS PAN published his book, Filozof i terytorium (Philosopher and Territory) on the Warsaw School of Historians of Ideas. Together with Krzysztof Skonieczny, he is co-editor of three books – Atheism Revisited. Rethinking Modernity and Inventing New Modes of Life (Palgrave Macmillan 2020) and Living and Thinking in the Post-Digital World (Universitas 2021), Regimes of Capital in the Postdigital Age (Routledge, 2023). Currently, he is the head of the experimental Laboratory of Techno-Humanities at the Faculty of Artes Liberales where for several years he realizes the “Technology and Socialization” project.

 

Nestor Ngong Dzenchuo
(Independent Scholar)

Abstract:
War has never appealed to the human conscience – not in any form. This is because in war humanity descends into brutes, even feral and soulless.
The world has never been gripped with bated breath like when a new war breaks out, no matter the reason in the world’s polycrisis. This is because the first real victims are the women and children as has been noted and still in the ongoing war in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon based on Linguistic Lines, otherwise known as Ambassonian War of Independence. This war pits the military and Southern Cameroon Revolutionary Guards, the separatist fighters.
The torture and execution of captured opponents without respect of international convention on war by both sides lend credence to the cruelty and barbarity of war. The mistreatment, rape and sometimes execution of local girls by the military because they are ‘Ambassonian women’ by the soldiers with callous disregard by the authorities is heart-rending, thoughts that make culpable international communities such as the African Union and the United nations as silent accomplices to war’s cruelty and barbarism today.
The war began when both disgruntled Common Law lawyers had come out on the street bearing peace plants, demanded a translation of the OHADA (Business Law) texts from French into English of Cameroon’s bijural system. The legal minds were severely manhandled by security elements. On the heels of that the Cameroon Anglophone Teachers Trade Union (CATTU) to came out to protest, demanding salary increment and improve working condition like their French counterparts. They too were severely beaten with police batons. This war has seen pregnant women caught and put behind bars for being spouses of separatist fighters. Or, the bodies of slain separatist fighters decapitated and burnt to ashes by the military and vice versa. The cruelty perpetuated by the belligerents, Ambassinian fighters and the army, makes war an unpleasant thing to wish for.

 

Maria Wodzińska
(Independent Researcher)

Abstract:
The purpose of my speech is to pay attention to two intersecting phenomena: the radicalization of migration policies and the expansion of security measures. Based on Achille Mbembe’s term, I refer to them as brutalism of migration and migration of brutalism respectively. In the presentation, I will show the applicability of the term brutalism in both contexts by discussing concrete examples of practices.
The starting point is the recognition that we are living today at a time when migration has become the norm. There are many reasons for this, most often linked to the policies of specific countries, wars, economic crises, or climate change. These factors frequently overlap and intensify each other, giving the impression of being scattered hotspots on the map that need to be isolated, contained, and regulated using „states of emergency”, walls, barriers, and border protection technologies. Systemic violence at national borders has become an immanent part of modernity, which in this case can be described, to paraphrase the Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe, as the „brutalism of migration”.
A parallel phenomenon is the migration of brutalism. This process is associated with the implementation of practices and the use of infrastructures previously used for different purposes – often of a military nature or related to the desire to ensure broader security in a particular place on the world map. The control methods and technological solutions used by the US Army during the Iraq War (2003-2011) were applied to the management of the US population after it ended. The situation is no different on the Polish-Belarusian border. We are dealing both with the transplantation of solutions developed as a part of the participation of the Polish Armed Forces in international military contingents, associated with operating in a state of war, to a place where (at least declaratively) there is peace, and with the application of practices aimed at reducing migration, developed and implemented on the Balkan route as part of state and international migration policies.
The topics I have taken up in the presentation are the result of my research and activist work carried out from 2015 to the present day on the borders of European countries (Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, Poland).

Bio:
Maria Wodzińska holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree (2014-2019) from the Faculty of “Artes Liberales” at the University of Warsaw. She received her Ph.D. degree in Humanities (discipline of Culture and Religion Studies) in 2023 based on her dissertation „Geontopolitics characterised through concept, image, and evidence. Possible ways to include nature in biopolitical and necropolitical reflection” which was written under the supervision of Professor Szymon Wróbel. At the center of her research interests are, on the one hand, biopolitical and necropolitical structures of power, and on the other, forensic research and the whole spectrum of relations between nature and the environment, and extractivism. She recently published a text „Prawo jako spekulacja”, (in: “Hakowanie antropocenu. Nowe koncepcje wspólnot więcej-niż-ludzkich w ekologicznych fabulacjach spekulatywnych”, ed. Małgorzata Sugiera, Jagiellonian University Press, Kraków 2023) and the article „How to Inscribe Nature and the Environment Into the Philosophy of Politics” (in „Philosophy Study”, March 2023, Vol. 13, No. 3).

 

Daniel Kisliakov
(University of Divinity, Melbourne)

Abstract:
As cultural change erodes connectedness, traditional modalities of sociocultural dialectic and relatedness prove increasingly inadequate, contributing to rising cruelty and brutality. This situation demands a re-envisioning of communication methods that can adapt to rapid technological changes, including the rise of artificial intelligence, while acknowledging that established approaches fall short in negotiating evolving socio-cultural norms.
This paper seeks to expand on anthropological insights from an Australian perspective. Distinct from Eurocentrism, the philosophical understanding rooted in Australia’s natural environment and Indigenous culture offers another perspective on the human condition, addressing the limits of established modalities. Rather than negating established narratives, the approach seeks to reflect the breadth of human experience, recognizing the value in diverse cultural frameworks.
Drawing on contemporary theological and philosophical thinkers, alongside communication theory and relative ontology, the paper proposes a multidisciplinary approach to addressing fundamental human need. While human dialogue is universal, practices like “yarning” offer valuable insight. Australian perspectives thus present alternatives that challenge established models, suggesting a mode of dialogue and relatedness that is inherent to the human condition. Sociocultural categories emerge beyond existing modes, enhancing cohesion and reducing brutality in an increasingly interconnected world.
The lecture concludes by proposing that this conceptual expansion, exemplified in the Australian context, calls for a re-envisioning of social dialogue and communication practices to encompass all human experience, with a particular focus on nations with Indigenous peoples. These conclusions are relevant to the global human experience and provide an model for navigating sociocultural and technological change without limiting the scope of analysis.

Bio:
Daniel Kisliakov is a scholar at the University of Divinity, Melbourne. He specializes in the history of Eastern European theology and philosophy. His research examines the interaction between Eastern European and Western traditions, focusing on their influence on contemporary sociocultural dynamics. By interdisciplinarity, he integrates Australian perspectives, proposing expanded anthropological frameworks that challenge the limits of conventional sociocultural categories. He has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals, contributing to a deeper understanding of human connectedness and cohesion in light of socio-cultural change. His work has been presented at various academic conferences, furthering the understanding of the human condition from both historical and modern perspectives.

 

Katarzyna Szafranowska
(University of Warsaw)

Abstract:
In the “society of tiredness” marked by exhausted and depressed subjects (Han 2015), it seems almost self-evident that there is a growing interest in R.E.S.T., or restricted environmental stimulation technique. A substantial body of research has shown that the temporary sensory deprivation provided by REST has beneficial effects on the symptoms of anxiety and depression (eg. van Dierendonck and Nijenhuis 2005, Lashgari et al. 2024). Isolation tanks, originally designed in 1954 by John C. Lilly as an experiment in mind control with potential military applications (Williams 2019) are now widely available for commercial use. They offer a form of solitary confinement that is no longer viewed as a severe punishment, but as a treatment for overstimulation — cognitive, emotional, and sensory overload resulting from the intensified connectivity of contemporary life.
Arguing that the sensory isolation offered by REST is a cruel fantasy of non-relationality, I examine its philosophical premises and socio-ethical implications. Firstly, I propose that float tank therapy represents an attempt to optimize rest, boredom, and contemplation. In the context of the therapeutic culture (Illouz 2008), I demonstrate how non-relationality is commodified and marketed as a form of self-care. Secondly, I analyze the withdrawal and comfortable numbness implied by the promise of minimal sensory input — a temporary erasure of both environmental and bodily context. As such, sensory deprivation is more than another rendition of self-absorption (Sennett 1974), becoming an elaborate, yet failed, exercise in non-existence, a strategic pause in the basic interdependence of living beings. Thirdly, I argue that isolation tank therapy presents self-referentiality as a “technology of the modern non-self” (Pickering 2010). By deliberately erasing the other as a point of reference (Han 2016), it becomes a form of escapism from the inconvenience of others (Berlant 2011, 2022). Fourthly, I claim that due to its commercialisation, delusive character, and idealisation of non-relationality, REST is ultimately cruel, as it deepens the crisis of connection (Way et al. 2018), and hinders both ethical and political responsiveness (as understood by Butler, Athanasiou 2013). The popularity of isolation tanks signals a trend toward anesthetization, serving apathy instead of empathy, and thereby further eroding the social.

Bio:
Katarzyna Szafranowska teaches and researches at the University of Warsaw. She is a philosopher and cultural theorist, working as an assistant professor at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales”. Her interests encompass gender studies, feminist theory, French poststructuralism and Jewish philosophy. Currently, she is investigating the influences of French thought on Jewish feminism, and feminist readings of the philosophy of Spinoza.

 

Václav Sklenář
(University of Pardubice)

Abstract:
In 2009, two masterly analyses of brutality inherent in the neoliberal order emerged: Berardi’s Precarious Rhapsody and Fisher’s Capitalist Realism. These texts uncovered twofold systemic brutality. First, unlimited deregulation of free market destroys the public sphere and subjects it to the process of commodification. At the same time, cyber space filled with innumerable transmitters overburdens our nervous systems with an amount of information and interpellations which we are unable to process meaningfully. The first attack brutalizes public spaces, while the second invades the subject in such a way that it restructures its constitution and brings about psychological and cognitive disorders in forms of over-excitation, dyslexia and panic. This results in desensitization, disaffection, social dissociation, and aggressiveness towards both oneself and others. Berardi and Fisher attempted to formulate strategies for emancipation. For Fisher, the instability of neoliberal order was signalled by the appalling rise of psychological illness, while Berardi saw opportunity in new forms of organization of mass intellectual labour.
Fifteen years later, the system seems to be even more impenetrable than before, producing ever more aggressivity in the form of wars, political violence, school shootings, generalized masochism, and so on. My presentation will focus on the ways in which neoliberalism reacted to threats to its stability presented by Fisher and Berardi. My thesis is that emancipatory opportunities have been blocked by a renewal of disaster capitalism, starting with covid and followed by many other states of emergency. This strategy submits us to ever harsher conditions of competition on the one hand, while presenting ever more threats to what is called “our way of life” on the other. Constant fear for economic and bare physical survival is added to the information overload, showing that while Fisher’s and Berardi’s analysis is still valid, we need to look for new and more complex strategies to break the vicious circle of systemic and individual aggressivity.

Bio:
Dr. Václav Sklenář has recently started his academic career as an assistant professor at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at University of Pardubice. His work focuses on Hegelianism and critical theory as sources for rethinking and restructuring current political frameworks.

 

Andrzej Frelek
(Polish Academy of Sciences)

Abstract:
One of the less known concepts in Adorno’s critical repertoire is that of ‘bourgeois coldness’. It denotes a type of affectivity and ethics, in which one’s world becomes reduced to a private sphere, enclosed upon one’s own interests. This reduction proceeds through a process of abstraction from the particularity of other beings, and most of all from their interests and suffering. A form of subjectivity related to such coldness is seen by Adorno as inherent to subjects caught within capitalist social relations which incentivize it. Those who have commented upon this concept in Adorno’s writings rightly see this type of coldness as the prerequisite for various forms of brutality, which is visited upon both individuals and their groups. Unfortunately, it is rather rarely non-instrumentally stretched outside of the realm of human relationships.
My goal in this paper is therefore first to present the concept itself briefly, and then to put forward that the coldness it describes influences, for Adorno, the violence of inter-species relations just as much as intra-species ones. In his writings the indifference felt towards the particularity of external nature is both the key to understanding the indifference of humans towards other humans, as well as a tragedy in itself. It is the condition of possibility for mass slaughter and instrumental usage of non-human nature.
Moreover, I will argue that departing from the critique of this coldness it is possible to speak about ethics of otherness in Adorno. This denotes an ethical approach centered on the recognition of any and all forms of particularity, which is based on an elective affinity with the capacity of other beings to suffer. This is a concept of ethics of compassion and care, and the sole goal of this approach is to prevent suffering in a wider sense and without boundaries.

Bio:
Andrzej Frelek is a PhD candidate at IFIS PAN. His work centers on the relationship of the critical theories of Marx and Adorno to the contemporary climate crisis, as well as to other issues surrounding the human exploitation of nature.

 

Andrew Culp
(California Institute of the Arts)

Abstract:
Liberal juridical and institutionalist theories of government often present statecraft as a pathway to peace—perhaps even Kant’s elusive “perpetual peace.” However, these accounts tend to overlook the dark underbelly of modern governance: cruel forms of governmentality. How, then, do we account for the political manhunts chronicled by Grégoire Chamayou, including the literal hunting of foreigners, the poor, and police hunts? These practices have not disappeared with the rise of modern liberal jurisprudence; rather, they have been regulated, formalized, and institutionalized. The professionalization of war, for instance, did not eliminate war crimes but instead enabled them on a global scale. Yet symbolic and physical violence continues to be depicted as a disruption in an otherwise peaceful world of law and order. As such, they are viewed as isolated events, allowing persistent cruelty to be dismissed as lone outbursts of defective personalities. In contrast, I argue that this cruelty is not a contingent aberration but a structural feature of governance. Drawing on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, I explore the underlying desire for brutality that fuels such actions. By refusing to separate the leader’s cruel glee from the structural features of government, I will examine the history of seizing war captives, the domestication of gender, the terror of bureaucracy, and the brutality of capitalism’s silent compulsions.

Bio:
Andrew Culp, Professor, serves as the Director of the MA Aesthetics and Politics program at CalArts, where he teaches Media History and Theory in the School of Critical Studies. He is the author of two major books, Dark Deleuze (2016, University of Minnesota Press) and A Guerrilla Guide to Refusal (2022, University of Minnesota Press). As a member of the Destructionist International, he is the co-writer and co-director of Machines in Flames (2022, 50min) and Breached: A Chronicle of Cargo Theft (2024, 15min). His writing has appeared in various journals including Stasis, symploke, and Angelaki. He is currently finishing a book, The Anarcheology of Power, a comparative philosophy of government.

 

Ewa Mazierska
(University of Central Lancashire)

Abstract:
The call for papers on ‘Cruelty and Brutalism Today’ suggests that we live in particularly cruel times. In my paper I want to take a partly polemical stand towards the points made in this call, by contextualising the apparent contemporary cruelty and brutalism in relation to history. My point of departure is the influential book by Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity, published first in 1982. Its title refers to The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels that pronounces that capitalism, which is the main characteristic of the modern age, destroys the solid world which existed beforehand. Marx observes this destruction or ‘melting’ with horror and admiration. Berman, similarly, recognises the violence of modernity, but he is its unapologetic defender, claiming that we must never forget ‘the cruelty and brutality of so many of the forms of life that modernization has wiped out’.
During the forty or so years, since Berman’s book was published, we have observed many changes, some of which are mentioned in the CfP, such as the growth of (unmediated) social media. I argue, however, that they are part of the same processes of modernisation, described by Berman, which have technological and social dimensions. These changes point to opposite directions: democratisation of entrance into the fight for positions of prestige, influence and power, and increased difficulty to reach these positions, due to a growing competition. The paradox of opening the new possibilities for everybody is thus more disappointment and disillusionment than might be the case if people were locked in their prescribed roles, as was the case in ancient and medieval times, which might appear cruel. The question is how to deal with this disillusionment on the social and personal level.

Bio:
Ewa Mazierska is Professor of Film Studies at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. She published over thirty monographs and edited collections on film and popular music, including Popular Polish Electronic Music, 1970–2020: Cultural History (Routledge, 2021), Polish Popular Music on Screen (Palgrave, 2021) and Poland Daily: Economy, Work, Consumption and Social Class in Polish Cinema (Berghahn, 2017), and monographs of several directors, such as Roman Polanski, Jerzy Skolimowski and Nanni Moretti. She is the principal editor of Studies in Eastern European Cinema. Her work was translated to over 20 languages. Mazierska’s new project concerns Roman Polanski’s films after The Pianist.

 

Joanna Bednarek
(Independent Researcher)

Abstract:
The theme of the indifference of the world is central to both contemporary realism (Quentin Meillassoux, Ray Brassier, Graham Harman, Eugene Thacker) and contemporary materialism (Thomas Nail, Karen Barad, Patricia MacCormack). Both tend to present human perspective and concerns as, following H.P. Lovecraft, a “misbegotten accident of space”. However, the theme is interpreted very differently, almost antithetically, mostly because of the serious ontological divergences between these two philosophical currents. Although they are often conflated, I am convinced we would be better off paying more attention to the differences between them. I would thus like to show, firstly, what the main ontological divergence consists of (the main points of contention are the presence of the concept of matter and the status of thought), and secondly, how it is being expressed in the affects produced by both currents (because I argue that philosophy produces not only concepts, but also, like art, affects). Whereas in realism the theme of the indifference of the world is being expressed mostly by the affects of malevolence and performative despair, in materialism it is being expressed by the affects of overwhelm and cruel affirmation.

Bio:
Joanna Bednarek – philosopher, writer and translator. Member of the editorial board of the journal „Praktyka Teoretyczna”. Author of the books „Politics Beyond Form. Ontological determinations of poststructuralist political philosophy”, „Lines of Femininity. How Sexual Difference Transformed Literature and Philosophy?”, „Life that Speaks. Modern Community and Animals”, and „Origin of the Family”. She translated (among others) Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway and Karen Barad. Collaborator of „Krytyka Polityczna” in the years 2006-2009. Her fields of interest are: poststructuralism, feminism, autonomist marxism and literature.