artifices – 6th Ereignis Conference – sets out to examine artificial intelligence as alterity, desiring-machine, and symbolic force that reorganises human subjectivity, labour, and planetary life. Drawing on philosophies from Levinas and Sartre to Lacan, Deleuze and Guattari, we question the natural/artificial binary and ask whether thinking machines represent a radical ethical encounter or algorithmic reduction of the Other.

Key questions include:

• How does the symbolic distinction between the “natural” body and the “artificial” cyborg create new circuits of desire and lack
• How do AI and LLMs act as desiring-machines reconfiguring affects and subjectivity beyond the thermodynamics of information?
• Does AI manifest Alterity itself, or does it annul the possibility of unconditional hospitality?

The 6th interdisciplinary Ereignis conference will take place on August 8 and 9, 2026 at Hotel Nadmorski in Gdynia, Poland, with a hybrid option for those unable to attend in person. Registration will be required.

Keynote speakers

• Prof. Sandra Meeuwsen, Erasmus University Rotterdam
• More keynotes TBA

Details

Sessions: Papers are timed to 20 minutes and followed by a Q&A with the audience. Each session is moderated.

Deadline for submission: Submit abstracts by June 1, 2026 through our online submission engine. We will return to you with a notification on acceptance.

Registration is required.

Scholastic committee

• Dr. Torgeir Fjeld, Ereignis Center for Philosophy and the Arts (chair)
• Dr. Gorica Orsholits, European Graduate School
• Prof. Dror Pimentel, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem
• Prof. Em. Jørgen Veisland, University of Gdańsk

Organisers: This event is hosted by Ereignis Center for Philosophy and the Arts and Inscriptions — a journal for contemporary thinking on art, philosophy and psycho-analysis.

More information about travelling to Gdynia, Poland, visa requirements, accommodation, and some information for those travelling with families.

Read the full Call for Abstracts.