“Each period of technological development, with its instruments and machines, brings its share of specialized accidents” (Virilio). But a reversal could also be true: accidents produce technologies. In this publication we inquire into a technology of accidents, but also into the forms of power and authority that accidents materialize. What are the specific accidents of – call them what you wish: artificial intelligence, machine learning, enhanced pattern recognition – systems? What do accidents tell us about the technology that generates them? How are these technological failures tied up with the creation and recreation of economic rationalities? And do the events that come to mind really qualify as “accidents,” or are they rather extended forms of functionality, which may be undesired, but not dysfunctional in the way that the derailment of a train appears dysfunctional?

With articles by Erik Bordeleau, Vera Bühlmann, Paolo Cirio, Florian Cramer & Elaine W. Ho, Ezekiel Dixon-Román, Driessens & Verstappen, Stefano Harney, Lev Avitan, Willem Schinkel, Rogier Van Reekum, Yuk Hui, Cécile Malaspina, Jason W. Moore, Lars Spuybroek and Sjoerd van Tuinen.

Paperback, published in 2024, 272 pages.

Table of Contents

• Sjoerd van Tuinen – The Technocracy of Contingency
• Jason W. Moore – There is no such thing as a Technological Accident
• Driessens & Verstappen – Pareidolia
• Florian Cramer & Elaine W. Ho – A Near-Sighted Falling into Technology
• Vera Buhlmann – Methods, and the Comma
• Lars Spuybroek – Falling and Image
• Yuk Hui – Notes on Technical Normativity
• Ezekiel Dixon-Roman – Exteriority, Black Noise and the Computational Accident
• Cécile Malaspina – Technè beyond Monoculture
• Erik Bordeleau – The Derivative Community
• Paolo Cirio – Capture
• Stefano Harney, Lev Avitan, Willem Schinkel and Rogier van Reekum – Thinking by Accident – Active Pessimism