Cognitive Warfare: Design your own Neuroweapon

7pm Thursday, June 4, 2026
Cognitive Warfare: The Brain is the new Battlefield (talk, free for everyone)

12pm - 8pm Friday, June 5, 2026
12pm - 8pm Saturday, June 6, 2026
Cognitive Warfare: Design your own Neuroweapon (workshop, with registration)

 

If the public sphere has mutated into a landscape of psyops (psychological operations) how do we navigate the transition from passive targets to active architects of cognitive influence? Cognitive Warfare: Design your own Neuroweapon is a two-day intensive workshop that moves from theory to speculative practice, challenging participants to conceptualize and "prototype" their own neuroweapons. 

Participants will be embedded into two opposing units: the Red Cell (Offense) and the Blue Cell (Defense). Following an initial deep dive into cognitive warfare and its tactics, each division will respond to a strategic brief and will be tasked with designing a speculative neuroweapon. Guided by the antidisciplinary principles, we will focus on the friction between human vulnerability and machine precision. Whether through video, technical sketches, or performative presentations, the final outputs will serve as counter-forensic artifacts, exposing the hidden levers of influence that govern our contemporary reality. This is not just an exercise in design, but a collective production of knowledge around the vulnerabilities of the human operating system.

The workshop is accompanied by Cognitive Warfare: The Brain is the new Battlefield, an introductory talk that explores the emergence of Cognitive Warfare, an insidious evolution of conflict that moves beyond capturing territory to capturing the very mechanics of thought. By examining the convergence of NBIC (Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology, and Cognitive Science), we will discuss how the power to regulate life is replaced by the power to engineer perception. 

Open to all audiences, the talk serves also as a theoretical foundation for the subsequent workshop, inviting the public to witness how the technologies that lie are being recalibrated to redefine what it means to be a conscious, political subject in a post-truth world.

About the authors
 

(More information soon)

The Estudio de Sistemas (Study of Systems) program
 

This is the third session of the 2026 season of Estudio de Sistemas (Study of Systems), a regular program of workshops, talks, and seminars aimed at fostering creative intuition and methodological experimentation around emerging and unstable technologies.

The talk and workshop align with Medialab’s LAB 5 The Mechanics of Truth program by deconstructing the technical and cultural mechanisms used to bypass rational filters. From the weaponization of neuroplasticity to the use of technological illusionism as a tool of statecraft, we will analyze how our cognitive biases are being reverse-engineered.

Who is this workshop for?
 

This workshop is designed for a cross-disciplinary group of researchers. No advanced specialized knowledge is required, although we encourage participants with technical skills relevant to the workshop’s topics and methodology to apply.

Practical Information
 

Free workshop, registration is required
Maximum of 20 participants plus auditors/observers
Language: English

All sessions take place in the Aulario room (Nave 17) at Matadero Madrid
Attendance is required for the entire duration of the workshop on both days
Participants should bring their own personal device (a smartphone or, better yet, a tablet or laptop).

Sign up
 

(More information soon)

Registration will be open until June 3. Participants will be selected on a first-come, first-served basis. In the event that some registered participants do not show up, auditors/observers will be admitted as participants in the same order of registration.