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 post-modern 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This book features a previously unpublished report by Jean-François Lyotard on the conception of Les Immatériaux and its relation to postmodernity.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 significance of the exhibition, his text is accompanied by twelve contemporary meditations. The philosophers, art historians, and artists analyse this important moment in the history of media and theory, and reflect on the new material conditions brought about by digital technologies in the last 30 years.

Texts by Daniel Birnbaum, Jean-Louis Boissier, Andreas Broeckmann, Thierry Dufrêne, Francesca Gallo, Charlie Gere, Antony Hudek, Yuk Hui, Jean-François Lyotard, Robin Mackay, Anne Elisabeth Sejten, Bernard Stiegler, and Sven-Olov Wallenstein.

Yuk Hui (許煜) studied Computer Engineering and Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong and at Goldsmiths College in London. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institut de Recherche et d’Innovation of Centre Pompidou and is currently postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Digital Cultures of Leuphana University of Lüneburg. Hui publishes internationally on philosophy of technics and media, in periodicals such as Metaphilosophy, Cahiers Simondon, Parrhesia, Intellectica, Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft, etc. He is author of On the Existence of Digital Objects (University of Minnesota Press).

Andreas Broeckmann is art historian and curator, works at the Centre for Digital Cultures at Leuphana Universität of Lüneburg and heads the Leuphana Arts Program. He curated exhibitions and festivals in major European venues, incl. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Vanabbe Museum, and transmediale Berlin. He holds a PhD in Art History from University of East Anglia, Norwich/UK. Broeckmann publishes and lectures about the history of modern art, media theory, machine aesthetics, and digital culture. He is the editor of Place Studies in Art, Media, Science and Technology (with G. Nadarajan, Weimar 2009).