SEMINAR ON MATTER,
AGENCY, ECOLOGY
AND THE NEW TECHNICAL
MON 5 — TUE 6 OCTOBER 2026
UNIVERSITÀ IUAV DI VENEZIA
PALAZZO BADOER
Arianna Caserta (2001) is a writer, researcher and film curator whose research focuses on moving images and internet culture, with particular emphasis on identity and online self-narration. Previously a Staff Writer for i-D Italy, she has published excerpts of her research in 032c, Dazed, Institute of Network Cultures, Flash Art, NOT, Do Not Research, and more. She is the author of Teen Nihil: cinema, adolescenza e nichilismo (Inactual, 2026).
Alessandro Sbordoni is the author of Beyond the Image: On Visual Culture in the Twenty-First Century (Set Margins', 2025), Semiotics of the End: On Capitalism and the Apocalypse (Institute of Network Cultures, 2023) and xThe Shadow of Being: Symbolic / Diabolic (2nd edition, Miskatonic Virtual University Press, 2023). Alessandro contributes to the British journal Blue Labyrinths and the Italian journal Charta Sporca. He works for the scientific journal Frontiers.
Martina Maccianti (1992) explores language, technology and the power structures that underpin them. After studying architecture, she gradually shifted her focus from the architecture of space to that of discourse: those often invisible systems that organise what can be said and thought. She works for Immanence, a company specialising in the ethics and governance of artificial intelligence. She is the author of Hackerare il linguaggio. Parole, bug e politiche del dicibile (Krisis, 2026).
Giulia Tomasello is an interaction designer and educator committed to female intimate care and its innovation. Co-founder of ALMA Futura, a research and consultancy studio where design, science and anthropology combine to co-create tools for a cultural and radical change in womxn's bodies.
"Liminal Milieux: Matter, Agency, Ecology and the New Technical" is a transdisciplinary seminar that combines design, critical theory, contemporary philosophy, spatial design, and multimedia arts. It is a first attempt to create a space for open dialogue between the disciplines of design and neo-materialist approaches; a collettive excercise in perception, before being one in method. It is a shared endeavor aimed at dissolving the assumed neutrality of infrastructures and algorithms, as well as that of non-human bodies and subjectivities.
The event is organized by the research collective RUST (Research Unit for Speculative Technologies), which brings together designers and researchers interested in the intersection of neo-materialist thought and design perspectives.
@rust.speculative
rust.speculative@gmail.com
Abstract submission: by 11th September 2026, h.23:59.
Please submit your entry by completing this form.
Selection notification: 15th September 2026. Selection results will be communicated to the email address provided in the submission form.
Seminar: 5–6 October 2026 at Palazzo Badoer, IUAV, Venice.
Download the full Call for Long Abstract here.