Bernard Stiegler Memorial Lecture 2026: Lecture by Helena De Preester
Moderator and Discussant: Yuk Hui
5 August, 2026.
8 pm HKT ― 10 pm AEST ― 2 pm CEST
Online event, register to join: http://bit.ly/BS-2026
Divergent Paths to Spiritual Culture: Technics and the Pre-Individual in Stiegler and Simondon
Following the recent English translation of Gilbert Simondon’s two primary works – On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects (2017) and Individuation in Light of the Notions of Form and Information (2020) – there has been a significant surge of interest in his philosophy. This expanded accessibility also offers an opportunity to re-examine Bernard Stiegler’s philosophical legacy through a Simondonian lens. As an early reader of Simondon, Stiegler relied (among others) on his work to develop the relationship between technics and the transindividual. Stiegler is sometimes critiqued for assigning an overdetermining role to technology in collective individuation, which critics argue flattens the nuances of Simondon’s account of collective individuation. While Stiegler interprets the pre-individual technologically, Simondon largely but not completely maintains a distinction between the pre-individual and the technical. This lecture explores these divergences, aiming to clarify how the differences between Stiegler and Simondon stem from their distinct conceptions of technics and the pre-individual, ultimately charting divergent paths toward a new spiritual culture. In this context, the lecture explores Gilbert Simondon’s dream of a technical culture and Bernard Stiegler’s ambition to restore a spiritual way of life, investigating the relationship between the pre-individual and technics and the role of the arts herein.
Helena De Preester studied at Ghent University (BE) and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (BE) before obtaining her PhD in Philosophy at Ghent University (2004). She also holds a Master of Science in Psychology (Clinical Psychology) and is a psychotherapist in both a private and a medical practice. She is research professor at KASK & Conservatory of HOGENT University of Applied Sciences and Arts and visiting research professor at the Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences of Ghent University. Her research is at the intersection of body–subjectivity–emotions on the one hand and technology–art–politics on the other. She combines (post)phenomenological research with insights from cognitive and more recently also affective science.
