WHAT
Hyperthinkers is a non-profit organisation that explores the radical shifts that technology and hyperconnectivity impose on the human condition and our environment confronted with complex entities of  vast temporal and spatial dimensions that defeat traditional ideas about what a thing is e.g. global warming (ref. Timothy Morton). In times of Big Postmodernism (e.g. cloud superpowers, extractivism) we urgently need to expand our notion of  media as an extension of human senses to media as an extension of Earth (ref. Jussi Parrika) to create insight and awareness about the realities well hidden behind our daily conveniences.

PLATFORM
Hyperthinkers is an open platform for critical reflection, dialogue and exchange that seeks to explore the ways in which the digital and physical worlds have merged to create an entangled hybrid and complex reality that encompasses us globally. Hyperthinkers explores the impact of technology and the role of philosophy and ethics in our increasingly hyper-connected, hyper-automated, hyper-polarised world suffering from extreme forgetfulness but which potentially offers a new model, new aesthetic with new consequences and new organisation.

HISTORY

Hyperthinkers is the result of  an artistic research project entitled “Towards a 21st Century Thinker” by artist Frederik De Wilde launched in 2016 on the morning of 22 march when three coordinated suicide bombings occurred in Belgium: two at Brussels Airport and one at Maalbeek metrostation. Inspired by the iconic sculpture “The Thinker” from ‘Rodin’ that portrays a nude male figure in deep contemplation De Wilde wondered: “What is The Thinker thinking now? How would a 21st Century Thinker look, feel and think like?”. The project was picked-up by the Joint Research Centers of the European Commission. Hyperthinkers was co-founded by European Commission philosopher Nicole Dewandre and artist Frederik De Wilde.