Cognitive Warfare: Design Your Own Neuro-Weapon

If the public sphere has mutated into a landscape of psyops (psychological operations), how do we navigate the transition from passive targets to becoming active architects of cognitive influence? Cognitive Warfare: Design Your Own Neuro-Weapon is an intensive two-day workshop led by researcher Filippo Rosati. Moving from theory to speculative practice, the workshop challenges participants to conceptualize and "prototype" their own neuro-weapons.

Participants will be organized into two opposing units: the Red Cell (Offensive) and the Blue Cell (Defensive). Following an initial immersion into cognitive warfare and its tactics, each group will respond to a strategic brief and be tasked with designing a speculative neuro-weapon. Guided by the anti-disciplinary principles of Umanesimo Artificiale, we will focus on the friction between human vulnerability and machine precision.

Whether through video, technical sketches, or performative presentations, the final results will function as counter-forensic artifacts, exposing the hidden mechanisms of influence that govern our contemporary reality. This is not merely a design exercise, but a collective production of knowledge surrounding the vulnerabilities of the "human operating system."

The workshop is accompanied by the introductory lecture Cognitive Warfare: The Brain is the New Battlefield, which explores the emergence of cognitive warfare—an insidious evolution of conflict that moves beyond the capture of territory to target the very mechanisms of thought. By examining the convergence of NBICs (Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology, and Cognitive Science), we will discuss how the power to regulate life is being replaced by the power to engineer perception, what Rosati terms the "biopolitics of cognition."

Open to the general public, the talk also serves as the theoretical foundation for the subsequent workshop, inviting the audience to observe how "technologies of lying" are being recalibrated to redefine what it means to be a conscious, political subject in a post-truth world.

About Filippo Rosati and Umanesimo Artificiale Filippo Rosati is a researcher working at the intersection of art, science, and technologies, particularly those undergoing phases of exponential growth. As the founder and creative director of Umanesimo Artificiale and Operating System Studio, his work is rooted in anti-disciplinarity, exploring the connections between art, design, robotics, biology, and hacking to foster new forms of creative research. His current practice and research focus on cognitive warfare, exploring the implications of weaponized neuroscience on human cognition.

Umanesimo Artificiale works with "exponential technologies" to explore the constantly evolving relationship between humanity and artificial intelligence. Based in Italy, it operates globally through a network of partners across Europe. Works produced under the framework of Umanesimo Artificiale have been exhibited at Ars Electronica, Sónar Festival, RomaEuropa Festival, Videocittà, RoBot Festival, WeSa Seoul, the Benetton Foundation, and the Embassy of France in Rome (Italy), among others.

Estudio de Sistemas This is the third session of the training and creation program Estudio de Sistemas, a periodic series of workshops, talks, and seminars aimed at fostering creative intuition and methodological experimentation regarding emerging and unstable technologies.

Filippo Rosati’s conference and workshop align with Medialab’s LAB 5 program, La mecánica de la verdad (The Mechanics of Truth), by deconstructing the technical and cultural mechanisms used to bypass rational filters. From the instrumentalization of neuroplasticity to the use of technological illusionism as a tool for state action, we will analyze how our cognitive biases are being reverse-engineered.

Who is this workshop for? This workshop is designed for a transdisciplinary group of researchers. No specific advanced knowledge is required, although priority will be given to participants with technical skills aligned with the workshop's themes and methodology.

Practical Information Free workshop with mandatory registration. Maximum of 20 participants, plus auditors. Primary language: English. All sessions take place in the Aulario hall (Nave 17) at Matadero Madrid. Attendance is required for the entire duration of the workshop on both days. Participants must bring their own personal device (mobile phone, or preferably a tablet or laptop).

Registration Registration will remain open until June 3. Participant selection will be based on the order of registration. If any registered individuals do not attend, auditors will be promoted to participants following the same order of registration.