Warren Neidich

"Cognitive Architecture" asks how evolving modalities--from bio-politics to "noo-politics"--can be mapped upon the city under contemporary conditions of urbanization and globalization. Noo-politics, most broadly understood as the power exerted over the life of the mind, reconfigures perception, memory and attention, and also implicates potential ways and means by which neurobiological architecture is undergoing reconfiguration. This volume, motivated by theories such as 'cognitive capitalism' and concepts such as 'neural plasticity, ' shows how architecture and urban processes and products commingle to form complex systems that produce novel forms of networks that empower the imagination and constitute the cultural landscape. This volume rethinks the relations between form and forms of communication, calling for a new logic of representation; it examines the manner in which information, with its non-hierarchical and distributed format is contributing both to the sculpting of brain and production of mind. "Cognitive Architecture" brings together renowned specialists in the areas of political and aesthetic philosophy, neuroscience, socio-cultural and architecture theory, visual and spatial theorists and practitioners.

En parallèle avec le dossier d’œuvres que Warren Neidich a préparé pour la rubrique Icônes, cet article pose les bases théoriques d’analyses conceptuelles et d’expérimentations politiques faisant du « cerveau sans organes » un principe de résistance aux dangers posés par le « cerveau câblé ». La multiplication d’interfaces promettant d’assurer une communication directe entre nos systèmes nerveux et nos appareils de computation est ici envisagée à travers la mutation du cognitariat du capitalisme cognitif en un « précariat surordonné » du capitalisme neuronal, c’est-à-dire d’une force de travail disponible 24/7 dont les capacités cognitives, affectives, mémorielles et imaginatives seraient techniquement modulables selon les besoins de l’appareil productif.