« Zéros + uns: Femmes, numérique, technoculture » avec Sadie Plant

Bonjour, ce podcast est l'angistrement de la soirée de lancement du livre « 0 + 1 » « femme, numérique et techniculture écrite par Sa Diplante » et publiez aux éditions sans soleil en 2026. C'était le 4 mars, 2026, après en bulle, juste à côté de la Librairie, la dispersion. La dispersion, c'est une Librairie qui propose une sélection d'ouvrage d'art et de pensée critique depuis 2015. Elle se trouve à la place des croits numéro 1 vers la guerre de Jeunève. L'ouvrage « 0 + 1 » a été publié initialement en 1995 et traduit en français pour la première fois en 2026. Sa Diplante y propose une contre-histoire du lien entre genre et technologie. Croisant critique sociale, cyberculture et écriture spéculative, l'ouvrage est en texte pionnier et constitutif du courant cyberfamiliste révélant le rôle essentiel mais effacé des femmes dans l'informatique, d'Ada Lovelace au programmeuse Anonyme. Par sa forme expérimentale et son approche théorique, le livre explore le potentiel libérateur de la cyberculture pour transformer les rapports de pouvoir et d'identité. Nous avons eu la chance d'accueillir l'autrice Sa Diplante en personne ainsi que Cindy Coutan et Oréan Péteni qui ont tout deux écrit un texte pour le livre. On y parle en français et en anglais, il n'y a pas de traduction. Le montage a été réalisé par Alasharara et la discussion est modérée par moi-même Ramayat Egani. Pour cet événement, nous avons reçu le soutien de la République et Canton de Genève. On commence par les présentations des intervenantes. Donc, Brian Péteni, je me suis accueillé de la poste face et donc je suis doctor en philosophie et puis aussi diplomé en histoire de l'art et en plastique. Je suis Cindy Coutan et j'ai écrit la préface des seuls livres iconiques et je suis artiste et chercheuse et je m'occupe d'un bâchelor à la aide qui s'appelle "Draman". Voilà. Ok, et moi, je suis Cindy, j'ai écrit le livre. Je voudrais parler en français ce soir, mais mon concept, c'est ça moi pour les conditions et pour discuter avec les voisins à bien, j'habite à bien. Bien, c'est Bilang, malheureusement, je parle d'autre langue, suisse allemand. Peut-être, je parle en plaît, mais je comprends le français assez bien, je suis venu, ça marche. Merci. Moi, je m'appelle Léa, j'ai parti des intentions que l'aise et j'ai fait le parti aussi de l'unique et des maquettes de notre collection. Donc, je vais vous lire le préambule. C'était le temps où nous flottions. A part de maire, il me semble que c'était hier espèce sexe, rasse, classe. En ce temps-là, rien de tout cela n'avait de sens, ni par an, ni enfant. Rien que nous, chaînes insécable de sœurs, chaleureuses et humides, indiceurs nables l'une de l'autre, magnifiques d'un distinction, débrider et fusionnel. Pas de génération, pas de futur, pas de passé, un plan géographique s'enfant de quant à pulsatile, de micro-maillage, de toiles d'interaction sans limite, de mélange, de sointement, de fusion, centre-mèlant à travers nous, tournant en cercle les unes autour des autres. Il réfléchit, inutile, sans but, insouciante, inconsciente, déchaînée. Plei et pliage, plié et multiplié, plissement et réplique. Nous n'avions aucune démarcation, aucun but, aucun moyen de nous distinguer, nous étions ce que nous faisons, quand nous le faisons. Libres échanges, micro-processus finement régulés, transfert polymorphes se rient des frontières et des limites, il n'y avait rien à quoi se raccrocher, rien à saisir, rien à protéger ou dont se protéger. Les intérieurs et les extérieurs n'avaient aucune importance. Nous ne pensions pas à de telles choses, nous ne pensions à rien du tout. Tout s'offrait alors à nous, nous n'y prétions pas attention, tout était gratuit. Il en avait été ainsi pour des dizaines, des milliers, des millions, des milliards, de ceux qui seraient définis ensuite comme des années. Si nous y avions réfléchi, nous aurions dit que cela durait indéfinement, ce monde flûant et fluide. Et puis, il nous arrive à quelque chose, le climat changea, nous ne pouvions plus respirer, il se met à faire terriblement froid, bien trop froid pour nous, tout ce que nous touchons était empoisonné. Des gaz ne siffes et des aerts toxiques raïfiers envahir notre zone océanique. Certains ont dit que nous en étions responsables, que notre activité s'était retourné contre nous, que nous avions détruit notre environnement par un accident que nous avions provoqué. Il y a eu des rumeurs, de trahisons et de sabotages, des murs murs au sujet d'une invasion extraterrestre et de mutants venus d'un autre vaisseau. Seuls certaines d'entre nous ont survécu à la rupture. Les conditions étaient six éprouvantes, que beaucoup parmi celles qui sont sont sorties aurait préféré mourir. Nous avons muté au point d'en être méconnissable, à nos propres yeux. Nous assemblons en unité d'un type qui, comme tout le reste, avait ou par avant été impensable. Nous nous sommes retrouvés à travailler comme rouage servile de système dont la complexité et l'échelle nous échappaient. Et si on nous leur parasite, est-il les nôtres? Quoi qu'il en soit, nous sommes devenus des composantes de notre propre emprisonnement. En pratique, nous avions disparu. Et le préambile se termine avec une citation de Sun Zi, l'art de la guerre. Un finiment mystérieux, il occulte toute forme. Supremement, divin, il ne laisse échapper aucun bruit. C'est ainsi que le parfait chef de guerre sera en maître du destin de l'adversaire. Alors, moi, je l'ai juste introduire et parler de la mission de Sun Zi, de notre collection, comment se livre et s'inscrire dans maquillée littorielle, comme je l'ai construit. Donc, dans le passage de Sun Zi, on a trois collections, une de théories critiques, une de théories esthétiques, et on note que la fiction est poée. Et on s'attache à traduire des idées qui traitent de toute cette sociale, de l'étude des machines, de s'identifier, de science-fiction, et ça fait beaucoup de sens avec les éléments qui sont traités dans le CCALEU, donc je faisais partie. Le CCALEU, pour ceux qui connaissent pas, c'est cybernétique culture research unit. Et donc, c'est un peu de recherche qui existait dans les années 90 à long, vers l'université de Varrique, et c'est des thématiques qui s'inscrivent dans notre ligne, et du coup, pour nous, ça donne le sens d'avoir ton livre traduit dans cette collection. OK, c'est bon, affecte-le-long, qu'on ne s'appelait pas au long. Je m'excuserai. Donc oui, c'est très intéressant de venir ici, et c'est très intéressant d'avoir vu ce livre translated dans le French après 30 ans. Vous savez quand je vais vous dire ça, ça te sent beaucoup mieux dans le French. Je pense que l'anglais, mais les choses aussi, c'est ça. Oui, mais je pense que, wow, c'est vraiment 30 ans, même si j'ai eu ça. Je sais pas si j'ai eu ça, je sais pas si j'ai eu ça. Il est probablement 30 ans avant. 30 ans, c'est un long temps. Le changement de la production de fondament de questions, c'est aussi la même chose. Et je pense que c'est pourquoi il y a beaucoup d'interests dans ce livre. C'est un moment, ce n'est pas seulement les translations, mais comme je n'ai pas vu des discussions d'hôpitaux. Je pense que probablement une de ces raisons est que la plupart des choses que l'on a dit, c'est concerné sur, surtout en relation de l'intelligence artificielle. Il y a beaucoup de ces questions que l'on a discuté dans les 1990s, en relation de l'intelligence artificielle, mais en relation à ce qu'on appelle la révolution digitale. C'est important, c'est que j'ai imaginé. La internet était relativement noue à la fois. La mobile phones n'ont pas appuyer. So in these ways, it really is a very long time ago in kind of technological time, as we might say, but as I say, many of the big questions remain, and people are still concerned about issues around what does artificial intelligence, for example, do to our creativity, to notions of our originality, all these issues around authenticity, they come up again and again and again. Questions about the borders or not between the human and the machine or between the artificial and the natural and what is intelligence, all of these questions are still around and still very relevant, and especially the need to subvert and resist what even then in the 1990s seem to be the goals of much technological development, which were of course, as we all know, mainly to do with the military, with control, with surveillance, a kind of drive towards standardisation, order, conformism, the whole kind of reinforcement of the Western worldview. And obviously, zeros and ones, and many of the texts were written at that time were attempts to interrupt, disturb, subvert this tendency. Today, we could say that these didn't really work, because we now find ourselves living with what were many of the worst nightmares that we had in the 1990s that really have come through. I'm thinking from the way in which our everyday options for communication are increasingly limited to a certain few platforms, run by a certain few corporations, I say limited, even perhaps determined, we might say. And right from that kind of our everyday experience here in a city like this, right through to the use of the technology for ever more authoritarian and violent and cynical exercises of military power. So, as I say, zeros and ones in a way was an attempt to kind of ward off this future and propose some other histories and some other possible directions in this respect, yeah, it obviously didn't really work. What it did do, I think, at the time, was to, of course, encourage women in particular. So, I have a sense of connection, even a kind of affinity with the technology. This might sound like a small thing today, but in the 1990s, there was this real feeling, I mean, people often talked about computers as toys for the boys. Unfortunately, this does sound like, you know, very out of date now. But it was an intervention into that kind of atmosphere. It was also an attempt to expose and bring out women's role in the infrastructure of the technology and also the importance of the infrastructure itself in the history of the technology. And an attempt not, of course, just to add a few prominent female figures to an already existing history, as, you know, a lot of feminists, the history does. You know, you kind of have the history of, let's say, I don't know, art history and then you find the forgotten women and you insert them in and then, like, to feel we've achieved something. I mean, it does achieve something that maybe not so much. But what I really tried to do was insert these figures and in doing so to tell a different kind of history to really change the story itself and not just add us if you like to the existing story. So in this sense, the book is full of kind of twists and turns and non-linearities and a lot of discussion about unintended consequences. And of course, it's given expression in a kind of non-linear form. And if I'm honest, it's probably this form and the way the book is written that I still like to bias it myself. I still think it's like the most valuable aspect of the book. Some of its themes, of course, are very dated. Obviously, as I said, it's a long time ago. I think some of the strategies it uses are also dated. For example, it's suggestion that in effect power will inevitably be undermined by what it thinks are the tools in its service. This is the kind of line the book really pushes in a kind of propagandist way. At the time, I think it was a really powerful and useful and inspiring, even empowering kind of suggestion. But now, probably I would rather say that there is no inevitability of that happening, but there's no inevitability on either side. There just is no inevitability at all. So there's no kind of guarantee that something more emancipatory or egalitarian or, frankly, just more pleasurable and fun will come out of where we are now. But at the same time, there's also no guarantee that the kind of patriarchal war mongers that we are now suffering under will win either. So neither side have this inevitability. And maybe now, I would say combating these narratives of inevitability is actually in itself quite an important thing to do. But there's still quite a lot about the book's kind of provocative and quite cheeky and a bit propagandist style, but I think still can unsettle and unnerve those who think they have everything under control. And undermining those people is probably more important than it ever has been, and certainly in our lifetimes, and I just hope the book can still be useful and inspiring to all the people who are trying to undermine their power. Well, maybe I'm going to tell you how I'm able to live your life, because it's something that has been very, very long. And then, the way I learned about it was maybe to give lectures to understand why this book is extremely useful and why this book is completely successful. In fact, I think to understand the current situation a bit, in fact. In fact, for anyone who is interested in questions related to technology, really this book is absolutely indispensable, iconic. It's one of the first books that we have to read. In any case, it's a complex conviction that I have, it's like that, that he has arrived in my hands, but it's an evidence that I'm giving you right now. Because, in fact, he comes back to the fact that, once upon a time, of the technology that is completely unknown, which was completely easy for patriarchy, imperialists, well, well-known reasons. But also that, finally, he comes back to almost all this myth, in fact, of the technology that is absolutely a myth, a myth of a story that falls from the sky, which is the destiny of the white world, which is the destiny of the West, the destiny of the Western Empire, and which, amen, is inevitable, where you speak, like a kind of rollercoaster, or everything that must be produced must be produced. There is no alternative, from the new alternative, it's the good one known, from Tachar, but that does not rise. And things can't be too good, in fact. And so, the thing that has these faults, when we look at this book, is this number of chapters. So, 75, when I wrote the preface, I was there, "Okay, I have to have a vision together, and I have done the list of chapters." We try to understand, in a sentence, what are the questions, etc., etc., etc. In fact, at the end, I didn't see it at all, and that's it, I think, the strength of the book, that is to say that there is a kind of power also, to play, to open all these possible, which are, in fact, a story, finally, which is linked to the technique, and much less to the technology, which is an ensemble of possible links to a way of being connected to the world, which is always a process, which is not at all linked to a form of difficulty, which is never linked to a form of cannibalization or devoration, which is always, in fact, a kind of negotiation, in a time and in a space, and it's always a story that is extremely situated. And the middle of the technology, in reverse, we completely say something, that is to say that there is no situation, there is no body, there is no Earth, there is no consequence, where we do it, and we advance, and that's what brings us today. And so, in the sequence that we are in today's book, Lironi has made the day of the release of the translation, in French, there was also Solif de Normanadjari, which is called technofachism, which also explains the sequence that we are in today's book, I can. what else? une sorte d'idéologie, cette espèce de conscience de classe, des élites qui sont en pouvoir et qui sont en train de discuter avec les personnes qui sont chers de gouvernement, qui sont aujourd'hui en train de poser des bombes partout, cette situation est là et elle vient profondément aussi de cette méconne essence en fait ce grand flou, toujours aujourd'hui qui nous habite sur, ben qu'est-ce que c'est en fait cette question de l'innovation technologique qui produit la technologie, qu'elle est sa matérialité, qu'elle est sa situation géopolitique et toutes ces questions en fait sont toujours en fait des points ravables, dans nos imaginaires juste communes, donc ce livret extrêmement utile pour comprendre aussi cette situation, à la fois historique et aussi voilà, qu'est-ce que ça signifie dans nos relations mondaines en tous les jours quoi. Et voilà et dans la préface du coup j'ai fait ce parallèle qui était évident en fait où il y a donc Zero Splish ones d'un côté ce livre économique important que vous devez lire et de l'autre côté on a ce livre de Peter Martin, donc il est fondateur de Palentir, Palentir donc l'entreprise de surveillance, enfin du big data de la surveillance on va dire qu'il y a des contrats avec de nombreuses états occidentaux qui œuvrent vraiment le maintien de la supremacie occidental, enfin c'est vraiment clairement dit comme ça si vous regardez les tweets, les publicités, tout ce que vous voulez c'est très cas. Et donc Peter Tille a sorti un livre en 2014 qui s'appelle Zero To One. Et donc ça crève les yeux quoi, il y a comme ça une contre proposition, celle-ci est traduite en deux ans en français alors que nous, enfin vraiment j'ai honte de voir à quel point ça a pris du temps en temps, c'est beaucoup trop, c'est au livre donc traduisé si vous voulez des livres, ils sont importants. Et voilà et dedans il dit tout en fait c'est à dire que le Zero n'existe pas, c'est à dire le Zero c'est rien et on doit passer à l'action et l'homme c'est l'un et tout repose sur cette mise en action d'une mission presque divine héritée de la supremacie blanche en fait. Voilà c'est là où on est aujourd'hui et on doit absolument avoir des outils pour démontrer cette histoire qui est majorissaire et je pense que ce livre est une pièce à cet éthéechiste quoi, à cet éthéechiste quoi. Oui ben merci beaucoup pour ta préfèse qui est vraiment effectivement remet le livre en perspective avec l'actualité brûlante moi je me suis occupé du coup de la postresse qu'avaient peut-être une dimension un peu plus à la fois et d'agogique mais d'agogique pardon puis qui faisait aussi un peu plus le lien peut-être avec certains concept philosophiques à la fois de la tradition philosophique et puis la tradition vraiment par de ce qui se produit aujourd'hui en philosophie de très intéressant et qui parfois serait clème de sa diplôme donc je l'ai vraiment m'aide ça en valeur. Moi j'ai les connu le livre de sa diplôme alors je travaillais justement sur la, ça va pas être surprenant mais sur la philosophie allemande et puis le post-structuralisme ça ça paraît plus évident comme référence mais donc je le dis parce que je pense qu'il y a aussi cette maîtrise un petit peu allemande qui énerve les textes du ciciario en tout cas je l'ai repérée dans plusieurs ouvrages de plusieurs hauteurs donc je pense ça peut être intéressant de garder ça aussi en tête c'est une autre clé de lecture et donc j'ai été impressionné pareil par la liberté de tout en fait c'était extrêmement rafraîchissant aussi puisque j'ai rencontré ce texte juste après arphe cinématèse et il y a quelque chose de très libérateur dans cette ouais cette manière d'écrire on va dire et puis je trouve ça voilà, incroyable à manière honte-elle liée en fait les questions liées à la révolution digital avec la dimension féministe et puis avec la question du tissage qui me préoccupait aussi beaucoup et j'avais rarement trouvé un ouvrage qui redonnait autant de dignité en fait à cette pratique technique artistique qui connaît une sorte de revival aujourd'hui dans les pratiques curatoriales dans les expositions mais qui a mis aussi du temps à retrouver sa dignité dans le monde de l'art et donc moi j'allais traiter sur Annie Albert ce qui est exposé en ce moment d'ailleurs je le crois encore à Berne et en fait en disant le livre de sa diplomande après avoir traité sur Annie Albert j'ai vraiment de trucs qui avaient un dialogue magnifique qui pouvait se jouer entre les deux donc ça je l'ai un petit peu expliqué dans la post face et donc l'idée de la post face c'était un peu huit pédagogiques on va dire c'était aussi un peu ce qu'avait demandé par eux par son soleil c'était à la fois présentée donc le ctiario parce que on commence à le redécouvrir grâce à votre grâce à vos initiatives en tout cas dans le monde francophone et je m'en réjeu vraiment parce que je pense que c'est un délaboratoire les plus puissants en termes de production de concept pour penser notre contemporain et puis le futur dans ces versants obscur comme lumineux donc je présente un peu le ctiario le contexte d'écriture les débuts du net, les belles bussiments de l'informatique quantique qui est déjà très présente pour l'époque dans ton livre c'est incroyable et j'essaie de mettre ça aussi un petit peu en dialogue avec la profuturisme qui émerge au même moment donc j'ai un peu l'impression que c'est le pendant féministe ce qui essaie de faire les affronts futuristes donc je pense que ça peut être bien mettre les deux mouvements en dialogue on va dire quand on lit le livre et puis pareil j'ai beaucoup insisté sur la forme parce que comme tu le disais c'est vraiment ce qui est très réjouissant et je pense que le livre il essaie vraiment de performer en fait aussi les tests je n'ai même pas envie d'appeler ça des tests mais en tout cas ce qui est véculé on va dire ce qui est plutôt rare dans la théorie en tout cas dans de la filo et donc il a vraiment ce côté en fait il y a un hypertexte il appelle le format numérique en fait ton livre et donc il appelle vraiment une navigation personnelle de chaque lecteur électrice qui va pouvoir vraiment naviguer à sa manière moi il y a des points qui m'ont parlé et c'est comme ça que j'ai construit ma post-face mais c'est sûr que chacun pourra se saisir en fait complètement d'autres entrées et moi je vois vraiment ce livre comme un projet en open source où justement chacun est libre en fait de le prolonger, le continuer, le disséminer et donc ça c'était le dernier but on va dire de la post-face c'était de nommer et sans du tout que ce soit exhaustif mais en certainant de projet théorique contemporain qui pour moi se situe dans cette appel à la prolongation et à l'enrichissement du projet donc je parle du manifest exénovéministe de certaines autrices qui suit des nouveaux matérielismes et donc tout ça c'est juste en fait des débuts d'encouragement pour que chacun batisse en fait sa lecture dans ce livre et à échercher aussi ailleurs dans des zones extra-textuelles en fait sa compréhension de cette ouvrage extrêmement riche voilà - Est-ce que la direction où est-ce que j'ai aimé? - Oui, c'était l'idée J'ai voulu pousser, quoi c'est possible les limites du livre les limites c'est bien sûr très linénaire mais c'était mon défi - On voit que ça appelle une autre forme en fait - Alors moi j'ai une question parce qu'on parle beaucoup de ce CC RUN c'est une relativ culture research unit et en fait c'est un peu mystérieux moi j'ai trouvé une liste de centres d'anternet et c'est le cinéma, la complexité et de liste la danse musique, le huit cache, le cryptage, le féminisme la fiction, les images, la vie inorganique, la pi-jong-gong, les marchés, les matrices les microbiotiques, le multinédia, les réseaux, les chiffres la perception, la réplication, la sexe, la simulation, le sang, les télécommunications, les textiles, les textes le commerce, la vidéo, la visualité, la vie - C'est pourquoi, est-ce que on peut savoir ce que vous faisiez vraiment ça se passait, comment ça se passait, comment ça se passait, c'est toi qui l'a lancé et du coup ça fait très de gens et on peut nous parler aussi de ces dégosses stames qui étaient peut-être pour les thérômes pour les thérômes, c'était avant après vous expliquer un peu parce que c'est notre histoire c'est de becoming un sort de légendaire, un peu mythologique, c'est d'abord d'abord, d'abord, quand vous êtes invoqué, quelque chose comme ça, ces dégosses, vous pouvez le faire c'est bon, mais oui, c'était. sur le même hand, il y a un groupe de gens dans un department philosophique, un universitaire et il y avait une autre groupe de gens dans les étudiants culturels du department dans un deuxième universitaire et j'étais partie de l'attaque. Et ces deux groupes qui mettent à l'autre et il y avait beaucoup de. bien, je ne sais pas comment être intérêt, et ce n'est pas tous les intresses que vous lisez, mais ce n'est pas le moins intérêt qu'ils ont fait, que je suis en train de faire. were not really satisfied either in cultural studies, which was a very, you know, kind of sociologically sociological type of field, or in philosophy, which was really, I think, in the 1990s, probably like a lot of theoretical disciplines. It was a bit caught in this kind of postmodern, nothing's happening, there's nothing more to say, you know, end of history, kind of atmosphere. And, of course, we, I mean, in my department in the university, I was teaching in this cultural studies department. We, I remember us getting the first computers, they didn't even have hard drives, you know, you had to put in a floppy disk to even set it up, I wish on the kept mind, it was a little apple, this big. But, you know, it really was this, I mean, it sounds silly now, but, you know, it was this magical kind of time of thinking, "Wow, what is that?" And, you know, you can plug it in, you can, you know, of course, there was no browser system, I mean, we really are talking before the worldwide web was even thought of, but, you know, of course, you could contact people on the other side of the world at three o'clock in the morning, and, you know, you imagine that's the time when that wasn't possible, and you could suddenly do that, it was, obviously, we thought it was a revolutionary, which it was, you know, but nobody really seemed to be kind of noticing that this was happening in our kind of academic fields. And, of course, you know, philosophy was full of discussion from the previous 20 plus years about anti-humanism, and, you know, what is the subject, the death of the author, this kind of, you know, theoretical discussion, questions about, yeah, originality, and so on, and it was all very much present in theory, but somehow the connections with the technology just weren't made. So, I suppose, you know, that's what was the kind of really exciting part of this movement was to, yeah, see what happened when you did, put these things together. And then, of course, it did almost automatically lead to this great list, which, you know, partly I guess that is a bit also from me, I mean, I had already kind of been in trouble with the university, because we have to, for example, once fill in a form with, it said, name your research interests. And it was like this big, then, you know, I said, maximum three, you know, I just thought, I am really in the wrong place. I'm in the wrong place, yeah. So, you know, it always seemed to me that, of course, you know, there's an endless list of things to be interested in, and especially to see how they all interconnect, but suddenly there really was like a good reason to do that, you know, the so-called digital revolution really did have an impact across all of these fields, yeah, right, from cinema to microbiology, and all the other things you had on the list. Yeah, so that's the kind of, you know, the less romantic and less kind of giddy version of how it started. I remember when I started to study the book at the time, when it was, because, I know, I know, I grew up, I had a lot of success, all the time, I was in the same way, and it was a lot of success, and it was a lot of success, and it was a lot of success, like a kind of kidnap, a bit of a man, yeah. It's like a feminist, but it's a little bit of an interest, it's like you said that it's not even a thing, it's just a feminist, it's a kind of a conflict, and maybe you understand what's going on, in fact, it's going to be out, and how it's going to start, how it's going to be, what's going to be able to be created. Yeah, I mean, for me, I pointed out the sort of regretful thing about it was that I hadn't long before published another book about the situationists, and, you know, probably politically, and in many, you know, otherwise too, that is my kind of starting point, and it's the point I often am still coming back to, actually. So it was a bit hard for me that this book kind of got completely ignored and kind of swept aside in this whole excitement about so-called cyber feminism, yeah. And of course, as soon as there isn't ism attached to anything, I'm just the same with the situationists, you know, who I have always refused to use the word situation ism, and then of course came cyber feminism, yeah. There's a strange connection with Arabic, because isn't a means name, you know, it's like giving things a name, give it a stamp. Yeah. And yeah, being propelled into this role, I mean, even sitting here, you know, it's really my, I mean, it's lovely to be here, don't you say? It's also one of my least favourite things to do, you know. No, no, I mean, yeah, it's not that bad, but it's, yeah, I mean, you know, on a serious level maybe it's actually still a bit something we should notice about our culture. I've thought today when, you know, I spent like half an hour with this guy taking my photograph, you know, I think really, you know, you've written all this stuff about, you know, against the spectacle, against individuality, against this kind of focus on, you know, the start. And you just can't escape us, the system. It's not only the technological systems we can't escape, there's a lot of cultural systems that are difficult to escape. Maybe we could say that on it, I see a question, precisely the book, in this way, to contribute a lot of different views and to perform, as you said, the fact that we don't think about it at all, but still with other views that have preceded us, that have accompanied us. And I would like to come back a little bit in the way that you wrote this book, because, well, it really, it really, really, is amazing. And so, I just wanted to know, how, how, really, materially, you wrote it, did it take a while, did you start the middle, did you start at the beginning? Honestly, I'm, some of this, I really can't remember, you know, so, yeah, that's a not very helpful answer. Yeah, I mean, past the story, I guess, is that I was asked to write this book by a publisher, of course, that's always a really, you know, on the one hand, a great thing to happen to any writer. Of course, as you can imagine, also, there's this big pressure, there was a deadline, there was time, and me and deadlines, you know, we're really not, not such good friends. And, yeah, and of course, I also felt I had then, by this point, quite sort of pressure from my colleagues in this cybernetic culture research unit who, you know, really, I think, saw their chance for a lot of their ideas to kind of come out through my writing. If we couldn't put it that way. So, yeah, there were, you know, several sort of pressures that I was eager to avoid. And I think, yeah, I think it didn't actually take so long to write, you know, probably I had, I mean, of course, there was a lot of, you know, there were a few years of thinking and maybe like two years of writing, I would say. And in those two years, that was also the kind of these two years that this, this unit existed. And, you know, by the time I finished it, I was already leaving this, this unit. Yeah, I think I really, you know, maybe even actually in the course of writing the book, kind of saw where I felt it was really heading in some, like, directions, which didn't interest me, didn't kind of satisfy me even aesthetically. And I also thought we're really politically going to be going in some bad places, which did turn out to be the case. Yeah, yeah. And they really also, of course, I did, you know, it was a bit, also a bit hard for me that, you know, for some of my colleagues, especially the dear and sorely missed Mark Fisher, you know, they really didn't like the book. Yeah, they felt, you know, it wasn't all well. I mean, I'm not going to stop speaking for other people, but, yeah, we didn't satisfy them. There's not much to continue with the book, there's the book, there's not much to read, there's a lot of sections and in each section there's a lot of books that come back to the book, which are books of 100 books that are not included by the book. So, no, it's not the fourth book, which is another one of the American books, the original one. And the one that's a book that is a book that the other people try to write in the English, Chinese, the first book of the fourth book is the synthetic one. And the other one is the guerrillas, and really, we have a lot of books, it's three books at the same time, there are also books from other cities, from Alabama, that's a lot of books, I think. And it's a lot of books. It's not books, why are they important and why are they so present in narration and maybe what it's like to know these people at this time, Well, it's too bad. in England, one tour, the visibility, I don't know if that's going to be good or bad. I suppose I just felt these were texts or at least the parts of the texts that I used, like others in the book. It is a bit of a collage with lots and lots of quotations and in the sense it's sort of without permission or sort of collectively written sort of book in a way. And yeah, I guess I felt these books really, these texts added something. Moniquity, I really still really love, I think she's a very important writer and something about the kind of passion or even anger that she wrote with. I think it's really commendable and often missing today. I mean, you know, it's quite funny since I am now with a partner and three kids. But people have often said to me, you know, it is kind of in a philosophical way, at least, sort of lesbian philosophy in this book, because it is talking about this relations between this kind of materiality, a kind of horizontality amongst these kind of female forces, if you like. So yeah, maybe that's why Beatty's voice is very present in it. And yeah, on Pat Katigan, I mean, I always thought she was a really good and kind of neglected contemporary of people like William Gibson, you know, a little more well-known kind of cyberpunk writers. So I read it a meter a couple of times through the CCRU, she was invited to come and talk and so on. So yeah, that was the connection with her. Yes, I would like to come back to the preamble or the prologue that we've all heard, which is really unique. And precisely, there is a little bit of this dimension of the impression in the beginning of the science fiction book, which stops in a quick way. But actually, we also said at the beginning, I was told that we would almost say that it is also a kind of writing of a certain passage of the Bible, but in a way, indeed, in a way, extremely, in a very prophetic way, actually, in this preamble. And actually, what is very strong in this preamble, is the quantified imaginary, and it opens the book, and it closes the book too. So I wonder what is precisely, well, at the time, what was precisely the society by this imaginary, which is found on the Karim Barat, for example, what was the society by this imaginary, since you are looking to propose it on the basis of just the beginning, the mechanism, which is on which the digital techniques, not a lot of you wrote. So what was the importance of this imaginary? Yeah, I mean, this is still coming, isn't it? Like automation, like the end of work, you know, quantum computing is also still coming, as it was still coming 30 years ago, like a lot of other things. Yeah, of course, I mean, my, you know, technical knowledge of quantum mechanics is probably, you know, on the power of my spin pools, and then especially, obviously, this idea of a quantum computer really was almost kind of science fiction, although a real proposition. But of course, it, you know, it kind of fits with the whole direction of the book really to suggest that, you know, although the whole digital development seemed in some ways, you know, extremely innovative and radically different, it was, in fact, just constantly circling around and reinforcing these very well-established and old, yeah, mechanistic mindsets and in the computing terms, you know, doing so quite technically as well. And of course, that has really, you know, it's changed and it's not changed. In some ways, you could say, you know, you can look at that old computer of the 1990s, and you see it has this very, you know, central processing unit, it's very, you know, this kind of centralized, discrete, singular thing. On the other hand, you can look at that period and see, you know, the internet as this, you know, relative to what it is now, a very decentralized and chaotic kind of horizontal system. By the same token now, of course, you know, computing, it does begin to move into a much more, or hasn't moved into a much more decentralized way of working and then with the prospects of computing, yeah, of course, even more so. On the other hand, the other side, the internet has become more and more kind of, well, you can't really say centralized, but concentrated around a few kind of central notes in a more and more of a kind of shopping mall kind of experience. But I think, you know, I mean, maybe, yeah, of course, I don't know, but I suspect that, you know, what's happening time and again over the last 30 years with each of these stages is that, of course, the computing power gets greater. Things get faster. I mean, computing is larger matter of speed, I think, and this again will happen with quantum computing. It will be like the same only faster, you know, and the idea that there is this kind of, you know, really qualitative leap then that will come, I suspect that won't happen. And the same with artificial intelligence, you know, I think it's just the desire to pour more and more information into it and more and more money into it, and with the idea that it will kind of switch into some other level, but I also doubt that. [ Speaking in French ] Yeah, I think it's almost a similar question with, you know, the quantum decentralized direction on the one hand of things, on the other this, you know, radically centralizing tendencies, and we see the same thing happening in terms of gender and sexuality and all sorts of social relations, you know, on the one hand things are really moving in fast and interesting ways, you know, the fact that we can even, you know, have these words of trans and non-binary, I mean, non-binary, you know, that it's even a kind of mainstream term in this context, it's kind of quite amazing, isn't it? And on the other hand, yeah, of course, we have this reaction literally, you know, the backlash against that, that's probably, you know, it's broadly speaking, explains a lot of the things that are happening now, doesn't it? It's, you know, we sort of pay the price for the success in many ways. We've done a kind of backlash or reaction against these developments. [ Speaking in French ] I mean, honestly, after I kind of parted company in like 1997, I never had any contact with any of these people again, except actually, except for a couple of years ago, then reconnecting with one or two of them. Yeah, so, I mean, it did carry on. It's then, I think, without, you know, I think probably at the time that I left me as a bit of a, as kind of holding things back, you know, they wanted to really go off into this occult, what to me kind of quasi-fascist direction. And, yeah, so, and they did do that, you know, pretty much, I would say, I mean, not all to the same degree of, you know, awareness and complicity with that, but I would say, essentially, that's kind of the direction it started to go in. And Nick Land, in particular, who was the co-founder of this, I mean, you may know, this name, you know, is a well-known outspoken, well, what should we say, you know, alt-right technically, but, you know, yeah, bigger scientists. Yeah. 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Ym gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud. Ym gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud. Ym gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud. Ys gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud. Ys gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud. Ys gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud. Ys gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud. Ys gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud i'r gweithio gwneud. see how much we are all sitting eyes down. You know, I do sometimes really get this urge to, you know, throw my phone out of the window and say to everybody, look around, you know, and I do think it is part of our current problem that we're not actually looking around us and seeing what's going on. Yeah, and of course it's very difficult to say that without then sounding, you know, just like an old technophobic person. I mean, I am old but I'm of course not technophobic. But, um, no, that's very scary. Yeah, there was an article just last week in the what's actually about exactly this topic of, you know, a lot of the companies in the states which are investing in psychedelic research and so on are being now brought by the same far right corporates, players that we know so well. There are people who are investing in this kind of research, you know, and it's another kind of twist, isn't it? These psychedelic culture that say in the 1960s, '70s, even '90s to some extent was such a kind of, you know, regarded as so creative and productive and radical and subversive and, yeah, now gets brought up by these players on the right. So that is, you know, kind of quite a, well, it's something to look out for is that, yeah. Thank you. And so, you know, now you are working more on pedagogy and writing about pedagogy as well and how do you do you think you used to absorb these ideas and you know, writing today and how? Which ideas that what we've been talking to you about? Yeah, I mean, this topic of pedagogy, of course, I do do some teaching in the archive in Ben, but I honestly couldn't, wouldn't really say, as you've just said, that I'm, you know, I have just written a small text about the relationship between kindergarten and art school, actually, you know, but I mean, it's really, I mean, it's a small thing. Yeah, and the bigger project that I mentioned earlier, you know, that does definitely have a bearing on a lot of the things that we're talking about now, yeah. Well, but I haven't finished that yet, unfortunately. Sometimes I thought maybe it isn't even a book, perhaps it should be like a film or an exhibition or something else, but I think it will be a book and it will kind of cover a lot of these philosophical issues in a non-academic way, and it will have pictures as well. So my new challenge to write a philosophy book that is accessible for people who can't read. And I have actually just, if I can just show this to a few years ago, I did my very first kind of artwork thanks to an invitation. Yeah, hopefully it won't be the last, but it's, it was an installation in, in Beale, on, in a very, it's like the off space of an off space, and it's called the Secret Space, Lullia Secre, and it's curated by Florence Young, who may be know and Emily Gwena. Anyway, they asked me to do something in this vitrine, which was, well, I say vitrine, it's a, that's a bit grand, it's an old telephone kiosk, and I made it into a, a place that looks like you can take a book or leave a book in one of these free book places, I think this one just ran the corner here somewhere, but then you couldn't enter it, and when you looked at it closely, if you looked at it closely, you saw that the, the books were arranged very, very carefully, I mean millimeter exact, with their titles lined up underneath each other, so they were placed horizontally, and each pile of books makes, makes a poem. And it had a QR code on the door, and you could scan the QR code, and then you saw the poems as texts, and then you could kind of read them on the phone, and see them in the space. And of course, there's so much of projects about books on the one hand, so I always thought it would be great to turn it into a book, and not long ago this book was published by Spectre Books, which has the, a few photos of the installation, it has the poems themselves kind of written as poems, I call them poems, I decided to do a, a little book launch in Zurich, and somebody in the orchard said, "What makes you think they're poems?" They are poems, and they're kind of written as poems, and they're multilingual, a partly because Biel, of course, is such a multilingual city, and then they're also, you can also see, like, they're not photographs, but they're actually scans of the, the book's fine, so you can't actually read them in their original form, as it were, as images in the book. So it's like a, there's, it's like several takes on the same, on the same project. Yeah, and as I say, it's partly about books, but it's also, you know, not totally irrelevant to our discussion today, because maybe it is trying to sort of just suggest to people that there are, like, little snippets of magic around us, you know, two books on the shelf, do actually, you know, make a two-line poem, and yeah, anybody can do it, you can do it with your own book shells, and then of course you just kind of tunes you in a little bit to all of the text and all of the other things that are around in the world. So it's a very small gesture, but, yeah, as you probably can get, as you probably realise, I think it's actually in these relatively small gestures that a lot of things can happen.