30 Years after Les Immatériaux: Art, Science, and Theory

In 1985, the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard curated a groundbreaking exhibition called Les Immatériaux at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The exhibition showed how telecommunication technologies were beginning to impact every aspect of life. At the same time, it was a material demonstration of what Lyotard called the postmodern condition. This book features a previously unpublished report by Jean-François Lyotard on the conception of Les Immatériaux and its relation to postmodernity. Reviewing the historical signifi cance of the exhibition, his text is accompanied by twelve contemporary meditations. The philosophers, art historians, and artists - among them Bernard Stiegler, Sven-Olov Wallenstein, Anne-Elisabeth Sejten and Jean-Louis Boissier - analyse this important moment in the history of media and theory, and refl ect on the new material conditions brought about by digital technologies in the last 30 years.