The workshop invites participants to move beyond the familiar terrain of anthropocentric thinking. We place the major conceptual “isms”—from anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism to post- and transhumanism and emerging neo-humanisms—under critical examination. In dialogue with philosophers, technology ethicists, and artists, the session explores a central question:

What might futures look like in which the human is no longer the measure of all things?

The workshop aims to create an exploratory space where conceptual experimentation meets aesthetic and scientific imagination. By bringing together diverse modes of inquiry, we investigate how alternative ontologies and temporalities might reshape notions of responsibility, cohabitation, and design.

Programme

Part I

Part II

Speakers

Esmee Geerken

Esmee Geerken is a Dutch artist and Earth scientist, with a main expertise in biomineralisation and paleoceanography. After defending her dissertation entitled Elements in foraminiferal shells as recorders of past climates in December 2019, Esmee now combines her interdisciplinairy background in an artistic practice influenced by geology, chemistry and philosophy. Her work playfully questions our perception of the obvious – the curvature of the Earth, and the peculiar – how organisms (like us) build their shells.

Christopher Coenen

Christopher Coenen, is research lead of ITAS (Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis) at KIT Karlsruhe. His extensive experience in technology assessment, trans-humanism, and arts & literature collaboration—particularly around emerging technologies—provides a bridge between science policy, societal reflection, and ethico-artistic inquiry. 

About the organiser: 

Selin Gerlek is an Assistant Professor for Philosophy of Technology and Politics at the UvA, and, among other things, co-PI in the RPA "Shaping Interfaces Between Science and the Public", part of the Sector Plan theme "Digital Citizenship," and Scientific Lead of the Research line "Empirical Ethics" at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS).

Stefan Niklas is a University Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Philosophy at the UvA and PI of the project "A Planetary Aesthetics for the Future Democratic Society". His work focuses on aesthetics and the critical philosophy of culture.