Canceled: Cybernetics and Critique: A Theory of Digital Governmentality – Anna-Verena Nosthoff (Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg)

‼️ Unfortunately, this lecture by Anna-Verena Nosthoff has to be canceled.
We hope to see you on July 1 for Yi Gu’s lecture on “The Stack of Territory: Digital Complexity and the Making of Geospatial Infrastructures in China.”

Abstract:

Elon Musk describes X as a “cybernetic superintelligence,” Mark Zuckerberg views companies as “learning organisms,” and the inventor of Google Glass says, “Cybernetics is everywhere, like air.” These statements are not coincidental. Anyone who seeks to understand the digital transformation must look at its cybernetic origins. In her lecture, Anna-Verena Nosthoff offers insights into her recent book, “Cybernetics and Critique: A Theory of Digital Government” (Suhrkamp Verlag), and illustrates its fundamental theses with the current authoritarian shift in Silicon Valley. Indeed, contemporary techno-fascism, as promoted by figures like Musk, can be understood particularly well from the perspective of cybernetic constructs. This brings into focus not only transhumanist cyborg fantasies and solutionist, post-ideological concepts of technology, but also binary and affect-centered concepts of the public sphere and technocratic, information-centered understandings of the state. These topoi find totalitarian parallels in the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” in Musk’s decidedly right-wing management of his platform “X,” and also in the current AGI hype. Against this backdrop, contemporary “Muskism” (Lepore) proves to be a simultaneously disruptive and incremental form of digital governance: it is primarily recognizable as cybernetic authoritarianism.

This event is part of our summer term 2026 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.

If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.