Thinking about the Anthropocene, technology, and collective labor beyond the limits of traditional critical theory: in Molecular Red (originally Verso, 2016; translation Sophia, 2018), McKenzie Wark develops what she calls technological materialism, which shifts attention from analyzing media content to exploring media, science, and work as fundamental technological forms of life. In doing so, she draws on the traditions of Marx, Althusser, Deleuze, Haraway, while also weaving together historical and fictional lines from the Soviet to the Californian tradition – from Lenin’s rival Alexander Bogdanov, through the writer Andrei Platonov, to the science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson. Through stories of empires, art, science, and speculative fiction, Wark raises the question of what forms of collective labor would need to be developed to build a real future and a tangible utopia. Instead of high theory, she advocates “low theory”—thought emerging from everyday practices, technical breakthroughs, hacks, and communal experiences, where speculation and practice intersect. Molecular Red is a manifesto of hope from the ruins of history and an invitation to a new poetics and technique of knowledge that connects thought, technology, and life.

The Slovenian translation brings this work into the local context with a fresh intellectual approach, whose breadth, combination of theory, science, and art, and original thinking surpass established discourse on these topics. The conversation with McKenzie Wark will be hosted by Marko Bauer, the translator of the book, and Primož Krašovec, author of the afterword, at the Auditorium of the Moderna galerija, Ljubljana.

McKenzie Wark is best known for a series of books in twenty-first-century critical theory, including A Hacker Manifesto (translated into Slovenian – Maska Publishing, 2004), Gamer Theory, and Capital is Dead. A significant part of her work also contributes to an alternative history of Marxism, including Leaving the Twentieth Century (as well as Molecular Red). In her books General Intellects and Sensoria, she explores contemporary theory and questions of collaborative knowledge production. She also writes in an autotheoretical style, with works such as Dispositions, Philosophy for Spiders, Raving, and Love and Money, Sex and Death. She is a professor of media and cultural studies at a university in New York.

The event is part of the Tuning with conversation series co-created by Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana and Šum platform. Conceived as a hybrid format combining a lecture, roundtable, and open discussion, the series aims to explore, reflect on, and recontextualize selected phenomena of contemporary art. Invited speakers will bring diverse perspectives and formulate interpretive proposals shaped by the creative and theoretical frameworks they work within.