Yuk Hui in Conversation with Brian Kuan Wood

Yuk Hui has written that machines today are no longer simply tools or instruments, but rather the “gigantic organisms in which we live.” While this provides a tidy description of information networks, today we also find the nation-states in which we live struggling to maintain sovereignty amidst the chaotic legal mechanisms and economic flows of an emerging post-globalization order. Is this chaos really new, or are we actually dealing with contradictions that are older and more familiar than we would like to admit?

Following up on their conversation regarding Art and Cosmotechnics (Part 1 and Part 2) in 2022, Brian Kuan Wood speaks to Yuk Hui about nationalism and technology, and Hui’s latest book Machine and Sovereignty.

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Accessibility
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–For elevator access, please RSVP to program [​at​] e-flux.com. The building has a freight elevator which leads into the e-flux office space. Entrance to the elevator is nearest to 180 Classon Ave (a garage door). We have a ramp for the steps within the space.
–e-flux has an ADA-compliant bathroom. There are no steps between the event space and this bathroom.

Bios

Yuk Hui is Professor of Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam, where he holds the Chair of Human Conditions. He is the author of several monographs that have been translated into a dozen languages, including On the Existence of Digital Objects(2016), The Question Concerning Technology in China: An Essay in Cosmotechnics (2016), Recursivity and Contingency (2019), Art and Cosmotechnics (2021), Post-Europe (2024), and Machine and Sovereignty (2024). He is the convenor of the Research Network for Philosophy and Technology and has been a juror for the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture since 2020.

Brian Kuan Wood is an editor of e-flux journal.