The Night of Ideas: Intimacy and Desire in The Digital Age. An Artistic Perspective

Launched by the Institut français in 2015, The Night of Ideas brings together leading French and international voices every year in 115 countries around the world to debate the major issues of our time.

This year it will focus on the challenges and unforeseen developments that new technologies pose in contemporary culture, especially with regard to relationships, intimacy and desire. We have invited panellists who offer an artistic vision of romance and its practices in the age of digitally mediated relationships.

What does it mean to love in the digital age? How are digital interfaces changing our personal relationships? What do new technologies imply for the future of the romantic sphere? How do screens affect our sexual intimacy and our desire for connection? This conversation, led by Valentina Peri, will seek to explore new directions in contemporary romance and explore the unprecedented connections between desire, emotion, technology and economy in the world today through the works of the invited contemporary artists.