In the first talk, Magical Pasts, Decolonial Futures, Dr. Evelyn Wan addresses the relationship between technology and magic by turning to moments in history where the two overlap. Focusing on technologies wielded by women and people of colour, these alternative histories present a challenge to post-Enlightenment rationality. Rationality and science have been the hallmarks of colonial modernity, setting apart the 'civilised' West from the barbaric and backwards rest of the world, replete with magical beliefs and superstitions, claiming the magical today stands for resistance against the coloniality of knowledge. In a magical world that has always been interconnected and relational, can we relinquish our reliance on scientific ways of knowing and sink instead into the materiality of our bodies, or surrender to the wisdom of unknown cosmic forces?

In the second talk, Heal, Hex, Hack Technology, Ginevra Petrozzi resists the capitalist myth that our future is makeable and determined solely by personal actions. She suggests that in fact the future lies in the hands of predictive analysis, algorithms, and artificial intelligence: technologies that have now assumed the role of fate-makers in a digitally regulated cosmos, perpetrating systems of control and leading users to unified futures. The talk will expand on magical thinking in the context of surveillance technologies, discussing how the notion of the future has evolved from ancient divination techniques to modern algorithmic systems, and how the supernatural could serve as a design tool to interfere with current technological systems of control.

The speakers

Dr. Evelyn Wan is an artist-scholar, dramaturg, and Assistant Professor in Media, Arts, and Society at the Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University, where she coordinates the MA Arts and Society programme and works on interdisciplinary curriculum innovation in the domain of Humane AI. Her award-winning research studies historical and contemporary technologies through the lens of decolonial media studies and performance studies. She is a founding member of the Hong Kong-based artistic collective If Time's Limited, and currently serves on the Executive Board of Performance Studies international and on the Supervisory Board of TETEM in Enschede.

Ginevra Petrozzi is an interdisciplinary designer and artist currently living and working in The Netherlands. Her work explores contemporary issues around care, futurity, and algorithmic governance. Currently, she is exploring the possibilities of mysticism and the occult within the landscape of contemporary techno-politics, taking on the role of a "digital witch", reclaiming the archetypal role of the sorceress as a healer and as a political rebel. She co-organizes The Holistic Technology Salon with V2_ Rotterdam, a series of community encounters to weave new, holistic ways of being with technology. She was a Jan van Eyck Academie resident (2023/2024) and a resident of the studio .zip in Rotterdam. Her work has appeared internationally, including Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Roma Europa Festival, Het Hem, INDEX Braga Biennal, MU Hybrid Art House, Nieuwe Instituut, and BASE Milano, amongst others.

Riccardo Molin will be moderating the PEPTalk.