Collective Performative Reading of The Glossary of Cognitive Activism by Warren Neidich
March 27, 2026, 5:30pm, Brutus Space, Keileweg 10b, Rotterdam
Guest readers include: Libia Castro and Olafur Olafsson, Abril Cisneros Ramirez, Ine Gevers, Hsiang-Yun Huang, Joep van Lieshout, Geert Lovink, David Maroto, and Pieter Vermeulen.
The reading is part of the Autonomous exhibition in Brutus Space, Keileweg 10b, Rotterdam, which opens on March 25, 2026. More info here: https://brutus.nl/en/programme/on+view/autoanomous/.
As the name implies, the Glossary of Cognitive Activism is an iterative activist dictionary composed of 330 words that together describe and navigate the technological, ecological, sociogenic, artistic and philosophical relations that today compose our general intelligence. The book now in its fourth edition expounds upon those technological relations that pertain to the neural commons of the mental laborer or cognitariat, the site of the brain’s  neural plasticity and neural variability important for the process of political, cultural and ecologic sculpting.  It pushes back against contemporary forms of neural-digital despotism at our doorstep and provides for possibilities of becoming and emancipation. Readers are provided with the intellectual tools to guide them through and dissent against our  difficult and precarious moment.
Invited initiators and readers ignite the audience into a conversation by reading a definition or part of definition from the book. In this special edition the reading will be linked to Neidich’s suspended text based neon sculpture now installed at Brutus called From the Society of the Spectacle to the Consciousness Industry.
In its fourth edition, Glossary of Cognitive Activism is published by Eris Press and available at Columbia University Press.
A recent review can be found at: https://www.zerodeux.fr/en/reviews-en/warren-neidich-2/.
In a world driven by capitalist efficiency, algorithms, data and AI are deployed to reduce human thought to an optimally performing resource. The productive are exploited; those who do not generate value are marginalized. In the relentless pursuit of profit, neurodiversity is therefore quickly framed as a defect. Our upcoming exhibition AUTONOMOUS shifts this perspective.
The exhibition presents neurodiverse ways of thinking not as limitations, but as essential forms of resistance and liberation, showing that a society that can think only in terms of efficiency ultimately loses its humanity, while different ways of thinking open the perspectives needed to reshape it.
Curated by Ine Gevers, AUTONOMOUS is neurospicy and psychedelic, pushing back against the AI-generated monoculture of the mind. Through large-scale installations, immersive videos and interactive experiences, the exhibition launches a takeover of our computer-controlled, capitalist society.
Across three chapters: Cognitive Capitalism, Y’all got ADHD and Psychedelic Pathways, visitors gain access to multiple realities and ways of perceiving the world. More info will follow soon.
Following the Brutus exhibition Fake Me Hard (2021), Ine Gevers returns as curator. With over 25 years of experience at the intersection of art, technology and society, Gevers’ research, supported by the Mondriaan Fund, on cognitive capitalism, neurodiversity and psychedelics underpins AUTONOMOUS. Brutus and Gevers share a distinctly inclusive mission: attention for marginalized groups, mixed audiences and deploying art as a driver of social awareness and change.
Participating artists and artist collectives: HipSick, Kenneth Letsoin, Stefan Panhans & Andrea Winkler, Oscar Peters, Warren Neidich, Boukje Schweigman & Johannes Bellinkx, Ieva Valule, Levenslust Academie/Abner Preis/Arno Coenen, melanie bonajo, Jennifer Kanary, Shertise Solano, Floris Schönfeld, Dyane Donck, Adrian Piper, Suzanne Treister, Natasha Tontey, Charles Stankievech, Emergence Delft, Antoine Moulinard, Pedro Miguel Matias, Inès Sieulle, Andrea Khôra.
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