Technology and Human Self-Understanding

New technologies are emerging at an unprecedented pace, rapidly reshaping everyday life. Paradigmatic shifts in communication, which once took centuries—from the invention of symbols to books to telephones—now unfold within decades or even years. These changes profoundly influence how we think, act, and perceive the world around us. Understanding the evolving relationship between humans and machines is, therefore, a key philosophical task. After all, what we call “human” has never been purely human. From the colonies of bacteria in our bodies to digital technologies that reshape our perception of time and communication, we have always been, in some sense, posthuman. As technologies become increasingly integrated with our bodies, this posthuman condition becomes ever more apparent.

My research traces the evolution of human self-understanding across fields like neuroscience, technology design, and artistic narratives. Grounded in phenomenological thought—drawing from thinkers like Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and contemporary scholars such as Evan Thompson—I critique the tendency to view both human and artificial intelligence as purely disembodied and computational. While poststructuralist philosophers like Katherine N. Hayles, Brian Massumi, and Mark B.N. Hansen have contributed valuable insights, my work aims to further integrate the concept of embodied experience into this conversation. I explore this through conceptual analyses of neuroscientific imagery, developments in AI and robotics, and phenomenological studies of cinematic narratives and digital art, highlighting how these mediums shape and reflect our embodied interactions with technology.

Have a look at my work as a speaker in international events get in touch for co-operation!

research field emergent technologies

PRESENTATIONS

(2025) Embodiment and Technology. Past, Present and Open Futures, invited presentation at: EACVA Symposium Embodied Agents in Contemporary Visual Art, CLB Berlin

(2024) Der Raum jenseits der Leere: Raum und Zeit in Merleau-Pontys Spätwerk, presentation: Kulturwissenschaftliches Symposion: Schichten – Gewebe – Form Texturen der Sprachbildlichkeit in Bewegung, Leuphana University Lüneburg and Dokumentationszentrum Hanne Darboven

(2024) Creativity in the Trenches between Materiality and Predictability: Fashion Design and AI, keynote at the conference Transdisciplinary Perspectives on AI’s Impact on Creative and Cultural Industries, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano and Basis Venosta, Italy

(2024) From Masks to Avatars: Aesthetics in Times of Artificial Intelligences, presentation at The First Coffee Break Conference of Aesthetics. Trying Out New Paths in Aesthetics, Velence, Hungary

(2024) Relationalities: Posthuman Aesthetics of Care, presentation at the 14th Conference of the Beyond Humanism Conference Series “Technologies- Ecologies and the Networks of Posthuman Care”, University of Lodz, Poland

(2023) Digital Fashion: Posthuman Identities and the Quest for Sustainability, keynote at the     13. Beyond Humanism Conference, University of the Aegean, Mytilini, Greece

(2023) Living the Virtual: AI Aesthetics and Being Human in Digital       Fashion, presentation at the workshop A.I. Aeshetics, CFUL, University Lisbon, Portugal

(2023) Technology and Critical Theory, presentation at the symposion: Frankfurt School:          Passion, Profanation, Apocalypse, University of Galway, Irland

(2023) The Gendered Body in Immersive Technologies, invited lecture at the University of       Galway, Irland

(2023) Being and Becoming Bodies Today: Philosophy of Fashion and Technology, invited      lecture at the lecture series: Global Humanities: Women in Philosophy, Pacific University,   Forest Grove, USA

(2023) Digital Fashion and Art, public discussion at Fotografiska Days, Berlin, Germany

(2022) (Post-) Humane Zukünfte: Überschreitungsformen des Menschlichen und ihre     philosophischen Implikationen, invited lecture at the University St. Gallen, Switzerland

(2022) Fashion Entanglements: Being and Becoming Bodies in the Metaverse, invited    presentation in the event: Phygital Fashion, NXS Amsterdam, Netherlands

(2022) Self-Awareness in Technological Environments – A Tentative Approach to Perception   in Virtual Realities, invited lecture at the international conference: Varieties of Self-   Awareness, Chinese   University of Hong Kong, China

(2022) Human-Machine Relations: A Phenomenology of Becoming, invited lecture in the         research seminar of the Institute of Philosophy, Chinese University of Hong Kong, China

(2021) Techné – Plasmatisches Transformationsgeschehen, invited presentation at: fest-  flüssig-plasmatisch-flüchtig. Aggregationen der Sprachbildlichkeit, Klassik-Stiftung Weimar, Germany

(2021) Mensch und Technik: Eine Phänomenologie des Werdens im Dazwischen, invited presentation at the international conference: Zu den halben Sachen Selbst. Phänomenologie des Unfertigen, University of Cologne, Germany

(2021) Contemporary Tensions: The Body and its Virtualization in Pandemic Times and Beyond, invited presentation at the international conference Being One and Many. Faces of the Human in the 21st Century, Medical University of Lodz, Poland

(2020) Rituals of Coexistence. Being Together in the Times of a Global Pandemic, invited talk at in the 6th World Humanities Forum, Gyeongju, South Korea

(2020) Embodiment in times for COVID-19 and the accelleration of the digital shift, invited talk in the 1. Beyond Humanism Forum, online event: http://beyondhumanism.org/

(2020) The Spirit of the Machine, invited presentation at the online conference Shamanism and Digitalisation, organised by Foundation for Shamanic Studies Europe

(2020) Rethinking Art through Human-Machine Collaboration, invited presentation at the conference Hacking the Computable, HMDK Stuttgart, Germany

(2019) Lived Time in the Age of Microtemporal Rhythmicity, invited presentation at the workshop Technology and Temporality, University of Vienna, Austria

(2019) Ästhetik der Technologie: Standardisierung oder neues Medium kultureller Pluralität? Invited presentation at the conference Weltkultur Gestern und Heute, Universitá degli Studi di Catania, Univesitá Roma Tre, Italy

(2019) Vanishing Hardware and Invisible AI –  How to Do Phenomenology in Times of the Disappearance of Technology?, invited presentation  at the international workshop How to  Approach Artificial Intelligence and Social Robotics from a Philosophical Point of View:             Methodological Questions and Challenges, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS)

(2019) Singularitäten und verführerische Betriebssysteme: Das Kino und die Zukunft der           Technik, invited lecture in the lecture series Zwischen Star Trek und Matrix. Philosophische Perspektiven auf Digitalisierung, KI und Transhumanismus, Otto-          Friedrich-Universität Bamberg

(2019) Transcending the Human – Technology and the Liberal Arts, invited lecture at Luther College, USA

(2019) Invited lecture series at Grinnell College, USA:

Beyond the Anthropocene: Technology, Innovation and the (Post-)Human Condition

Degrees of Freedom: Embodiment, Plasticity and the Need for a Critical Neuroscience

Designing Future Bodies: Fashion and Technology

(2019) Visibility and Invisibility: Democratic Potentials of AI, invited guest lecture at Tongji      University Shanghai

(2019) Invited lecture series at Shanxi University, Taiyuan, China:

Changing Life-Worlds: Non-Conscious Cognition, Affect and Experience

The Future of Human-Machine Relations: Embodiment and Disembodiment in     Contemporary Cinema

Fashion and Critical Thinking: Bodies, Sensors and Digital Skins

(2019) Neurophilosophy and Embodiment, invited lecture in the event Critical Conversations    on the Neurosciences. – Feminist, Sociological, and Philosophical Points of View, Paris Institute for Critical Thinking

(2019) Philosophical Hermeneutics, invited guest lecture at Aalto University Helsinki, Finland

(2019) Fashion and Technology, invited guest lecture at Aalto University Helsinki, Finland

(2019) Embodiment and Future Technologies, guest lecture at TU Darmstadt, Germany

(2018) Phenomenology as Critical Tool in Ethics of Technology, invited talk at P.E.A.CE Conference (Phenomenology for East-Asian CirclE), Seoul National University, South Korea

(2018) From Human to Posthuman Embodiment. Images of Embodied Cognition in Science Fiction and Digital Art, invited talk at the World Humanities Forum 2018, Busan, Südkorea

(2018) Presentation on the topic Aesthetics and Technology in the Philosophy Department and at the Summer School of Tongji University Shanghai, China

(2018) Zeit in digitalen Lebenswelten, invited talk at the workshops Technik und Zeit (DFG-Schwerpunktprogramms 1688), Kunstakademie Düsseldorf

(2018) Prekäre Pluralitäten: Virtuelle Öffentlichkeit zwischen Utopie und Dystopie, invited talk at the workshop Öffentlichkeit, Privatheit und Pluralität im digitalen Zeitalter, TU Darmstadt

(2018) Utopias of disembodiment reconsidered: On the phenomenal aspects of human-   machine interactions, talk given at the international workshop Changing Life-Worlds: Exploring Human-Machine Interactions, Institute for Advanced Studies of Cultural Sciences, Konstanz

(2018) Emergent Technologies between Phenomenology and Poststructuralism: A Methodological Question, keynote at the symposium on Phenomenology and (Post)Structuralism, Chinese University Hong Kong

(2017) Perceptual Ecologies: Inhabiting a Sensor-driven Niche, invited talk at Night of Philosophy, Helsinki

(2017) Presentation on “Being Human” at the roundtable tech-forum of SAP, Daimler, IBM, Kellog, Berlin

(2017) Simulating Human Life: Cinema as Future Lab, talk and organisation of the workshop Simulation and Embodied Cognition in Neuroscience and AI, MECS, Leuphana University Lüneburg

(2017) Götter, Chimären, Cyborgs: Amorphe Gestalten zwischen Schizophrenie und Zulkunftsvision, invited speaker at the workshop Pathos und Pathologie. Interferenzen religiöser und pathologischer Wahrnehmungsmodi, University of Heidelberg

(2016) Why Experience Matters: Technology and the Constitution of Consciousness, invited talk at Chinese University Hongkong, China

(2016) Sensory Overload. Considerations on the Ethical Implications of our Sensor Saturated Environment, invited talk NYIT New York, USA

(2016) Embodiment, Big Data and the City, invited talk at 10. Contato Festival, Multimedia Cooperativo, in cooperations with Nomads, Institute for Architecture, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Campus Sao Carlos, Brazil

(2016) Aisthetic Dimensions of Smart Environments, invited talk and round table discussion at Redbull Station Sao Paulo, in cooperation with Metabody and Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil

(2016) Ecological Subjectivity vs. Brainhood: Why Experience Matters, invited speaker at the conference Perceiving Truth and Value Phenomenological Deliberations on Ethical Perception, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg

(2016) Metaphysical Considerations on the Omnipresence of Sensors, invited speaker at the 8th Beyond Humanism Conference: Posthuman Studies and Technologies of Control. From Nietzsche to Trans- Post- and Metahumanism, Universidad Complutense Madrid, Spain

(2016) Imaginations of Intelligence: Embodiment and Disembodiment in Contemporary Cinema, invited speaker at the conference Embodiment. Phenomenology East – West, Freie Universität Berlin.

LET’S TALK