At a time when digital technologies are profoundly reshaping the contours of our psychological, social and symbolic lives, La Cambre continues its critical engagement with a new edition of CHAIRE A VIF, an open and vibrant space for thought at the heart of the institution.

For 2026, the chair is led by philosopher Anne Alombert and artist-researcher Judith Deschamps. Together, they propose to explore a crucial question: what becomes of the human mind in an environment saturated with technical devices capable of simulating, anticipating, or even directing our mental processes?

From Plato’s allegory of the cave to generative artificial intelligence, this series of lectures examines the contemporary transformations of our modes of attention, memory and imagination. Technologies are presented here in their inherent ambivalence: both pharmakon—remedy and poison—they open up unprecedented possibilities whilst exposing new vulnerabilities.

Bringing together philosophy, media history and artistic research-creation practices, CHAIRE À VIF 2026 invites us to consider these technologies not merely as extensions of the mind, but as sensitive environments, capable of revealing both our dependencies and the collective power of our imaginations.



Wednesday 8 April 2026 at 6.00 pm
AI at the end of life: technology, finitude, sublimation and melancholy

For this third instalment, Judith Deschamps will present her research-creation work, before engaging in a dialogue with Anne Alombert and the audience.

Contrary to the promises of infinite augmentation put forward by transhumanist discourse, this session proposes to consider artificial intelligence from the perspective of human finitude. It is no longer a question of competing with the machine, but of inventing, together with it, new forms of relationship, where our limitations become the very conditions for a new technological sensibility.