Keynote I (in english)

Peter-Paul Verbeek (Twente):

On Intertechnicality.
Postphenomenology, New Materialism and Digital Materiality

Postphenomenology has approached the technological ‘means’ as a ‘medium,’ an active ‘in-between,’ connecting human beings and the world. New technologies, though, have developed from ‘means’ into a technological ‘milieu,’ and sometimes even into an interactive techno-human ‘morph.’
Chair: Selin Gerlek (Hagen/Munich)

How do we conceptualize the new materiality that digital technologies bring about? Now that information technologies are merging with our physical environment, human-machine interactions can no longer be understood as “use,” but rather as immersion, telepresence, fusion, augmentation, or robotization. In this keynote lecture, I will bring together and expand insights from Postphenomenology and New Materialism to analyze the implications of this new, digital materiality. 

Postphenomenology has approached the technological “means” as a “medium,” an active “in-between,” connecting human beings and the world. New technologies, though, have developed from “means” into a technological “milieu,” and sometimes even into an interactive technohuman “morph.” These new configurations bring new forms of mediated intentionality – with triangular, lemniscatic, and chiasmic structures – and add a dimension of intertechnicality to the intercorporality of social relations. 

Peter-Paul Verbeek is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy of Technology at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Twente. He is chair of the Philosophy of Human-Technology Relations research group and co-director of the DesignLab of the University of Twente. He is also honorary professor of Techno-Anthropology at Aalborg University, Denmark. His research focuses on the philosophy of human-technology relations, and aims to contribute to philosophical theory, ethical reflection, and practices of design and innovation.

His work has received several awards, including an NWO-VENI award (2003), VIDI award (2007), VICI Award (2014), the Borghgraef Prize in Biomedical Ethics 2012 (Leuven University), and the World Technology Award in Ethics 2016 (World Technology Network, New York).