Close

Techno-Phobe! | Thomas Dekeyser

Thomas Dekeyser has a score to settle. After being branded as a "technophobe" by critics, in this lecture he sets out to dismantle one of the most effective insults used to shut down criticism of technology.

To critique an emergent technology, Dekeyser argues, is to risk being labelled irrational, or "phobic." He shows this insult to be deeply misplaced, tracing it through examples like MOVE (a Philadelphia commune that was bombed by the police in 1985), whose rejection of dominant technological life was used to strip its members of their humanity, making their eradication easier to justify.

Turning the insult on its head, Dekeyser argues that it's often not technology's critics but its most fervent champions who are driven by fear - an anxiety that the non-human world might resist total rational control.

Thomas Dekeyser is a cultural and digital geographer at the University of Southampton, and author of 'Techno-Negative: A Long History of Refusing the Machine'.

Recorded at FOTO ARSENAL WIEN as part of Vienna Digital Cultures 2026. Autotelic Foundation is Key Partner of Vienna Digital Cultures 2026, curated by Nadim Samman.