Coming in 2026: Issue 3 "Where are the Technologies of the Future? From Simondon to Science Fiction."

Submissions are complete for Issue 3, a guest-edited issue on the theme ‘Where are the Technologies of the Future? From Simondon to Science Fiction.’ Submissions for Issue 4 will open soon.

About Issue 3:

'Where are the Technologies of the Future?  From Simondon to Science Fiction.'

“Advanced technology must learn not only to invent the new, but to reintegrate the old and update it in order to make it a present under the call of the future.”

Gilbert Simondon, 1983.

Beyond ephemeral promises, forty years after Gilbert Simondon invoked the “call of the future,” reflection on the fate of our civilization faces shared evidence: the technologies capable of meeting the major challenges ahead — whether material, energetic, informational, or environmental — are not reduced to the futuristic appearances of the accelerated innovations that have marked recent decades. Far from resembling a blind race for novelty, it is above all technologies capable of laying the foundation for a less ephemeral future — for both living beings and machines within their intertwined environments — that should capture our attention.

This necessity demands a profound reorientation of contemporary thought, which must now rely on the convergence of diverse disciplines, ranging from the philosophy of technology to the practice of “science-fiction prototyping,” through the natural and human sciences, design methods, knowledge management, and ecological redirection. The goal is to move beyond the disorientation born from abandoning linear representations of technical progress, in order to develop a more complex and nuanced understanding of technological trajectories.

In this context, a paradox emerges: the dominant technologies, perceived as carriers of the future, often prove to be “zombies”— entities dead with respect to the vital requirements for the survival of the species. They monopolize the forecasting of the future even if they no longer respond to contemporary ecological, social, and cultural imperatives. Other technologies, sometimes neglected, forgotten, repressed, or buried in local traditions, may well contain greater and more suitable potential for these challenges. This observation therefore invites us to question what truly defines a “technology of the future” across all temporal scales, including —and above all — over the long term.

This issue of Aion gathers the main contributions from the colloquium “Where Are the Technologies of the Future? From Simondon to Science Fiction,” which took place at the Château de Cerisy-la-Salle in August 2023 under the instigation of the philosopher Vincent Bontems (CEA), the philosopher and scientific director Christian Fauré (Octo Technology), and the astrophysicist and president of the Utopiales Roland Lehoucq CEA). Artists, researchers, and professionals explored these questions there from a perspective that was both speculative and concrete. It is a matter of deepening crucial technological problems such as obsolescence, whether technical or cultural, the analysis of couplings and decouplings between techniques and associated milieus, as well as reflection on the affects and technological imaginaries that shape our relationship with innovation. The possible technopolitical bifurcation strategies are also examined, as well as the governance systems capable of reorienting technical developments toward durable ecological and social goals.

At a time when “artificial intelligences” are mobilizing, when toxic social networks exacerbate tensions, and when massive flows of information intertwine with energy, health, and military crises, technological reflection must imperatively renew its criteria for evaluating progress. First and foremost, it is necessary to overcome the addiction to technological power in order to invent an “ecotechnology” capable of truly responding to the call of a future marked by the intensity of irreversible climatic imbalances and by global challenges with unprecedented consequences on the health, social, and military levels.

We therefore hope that these works — which question, criticize, imagine, illustrate, and construct the contours of a technology of the future respectful of the myriad living beings and capable of maintaining a viable and desirable future — may inspire new encyclopaedic reflections worthy of Simondon, and engage us in collectively in developing practices not intended to feed the fantasy of rapid or spectacular enrichment, but rather to promote invention deeply rooted in the ecological and human realities of our time.

--Vincent Bontems