On Wednesday February 24 at 4pm the film Simondon of the Desert (2012, 110 min.) will be screened for the first time in the Netherlands, in the presence of filmmaker François Lagarde and philosopher Pascal Chabot. The screening, which will be held at the Universiteitstheater (Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, 1012 CP Amsterdam), will be followed by a discussion (Q&A). For more information and reservations, please contact Marie-Aude Baronian (lousbaronian@uva.nl).
French philosopher of technology Gilbert Simondon (1924-1989) is perhaps most well known for his creation of a set of concepts in the 1960s that describe our modern world and that, at the time, illustrated a vision of a growing alliance between technology and nature.
Throughout his life, Simondon was studied by some prominent thinkers (among them Gilles Deleuze) but still his singular philosophy remained rather unacknowledged. Since then, however, his work has been widely circulated around the globe, and has even gone beyond the field of philosophy, having a great resonance within many disciplines, recently including the fields of media and visual culture.
Though no image of Simondon is said to exist, Pascal Chabot and François Lagarde suggest that there are certain access and entry points, certain intersections of time and space, through which we can penetrate the worldview of « a philosopher with no image ». Through various venues, places, circles and contexts, the film opens a dialogue wherein contemporary thinkers recall how their encounters with Simondon influenced their own philosophical trajectories.
Considering that in the last few years there has been an increasingly perceptive interest in the work of Simondon, we must ask ourselves why has his philosophy, that now seems so relevant and vibrant, been ‘out of frame’ and ‘out of picture’ for so long?
The evening dedicated to Simondon will not only be an opportunity to introduce his thinking and his concepts to an audience, but also to shed light on the significance and resonance that his work has in many facets of our contemporary culture.
François Lagarde is a French photographer and filmmaker who has made various films based on Western philosophers and thinkers such as on Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe (2013), on Roger Laporte (2011), or Ernst Jünger (2007).
Pascal Chabot is a Belgian philosopher and the author of a monograph on Simondon: The Philosophy of Simondon. Between Technology and Individuation (Bloomsbury, 2013). He has also authored several other books, among them L’Âge des transitions (PUF, 2015) and Global burn-out (PUF, 2013).