FORTHCOMING—PRE-ORDER—Late April 2026. Order now for a discount.

"Retrograde Prometheus is a significant contribution to an emerging style of theory that combines natural history with philosophy of technology. In this new theory of subjectivity, desire is recast as a great balancing act, always intended to stabilize the organism against the inevitable. Through this singular move, Christian Nirvana Damato turns decades of theorizing about emancipation upside down, uncovering a computational subject operating according to a cold, selfish logic." — Carl Olsson

Blurb

With Deleuze alone, we can neither go further, yet nor can we turn back to Lacan. We are in motion, so we cannot slow the flow or easily change direction, one wrong foot and we lose our purchase on the Earth’s surface, and we descend into the void, all the way back to Sigmund Freud—there’s no death drive.

Entropy names the thermodynamic drift toward complexity and disorder, yet it is shadowed by a counterflow—negentropic, corrective, intent on holding form. One rushes instinctively to oppose the other, but the moment one tries to observe the direction of the flow, to measure and decide it, the distinction falters, collapsing into a kind of superposition. Prometheus, sensing that he is lost, unable to tell whether he advances or retreats, is forced to attend differently: to lock in, to get with the program. To desire survival on this Earth is to learn how to find stability inside chaos, on moving ground—to cultivate a desire that predicts and calculates, anticipates and responds.

This book proposes a reversal of a common convention within contemporary critical theory, the idea that desire is an entropic, creative and potentially emancipatory force. Against this view, Retrograde Prometheus figures desire as negentropic, structured around stability, prediction, and calculation. Far from being disrupted by technocapital, this desire finds there a troubling affinity, and is seemingly propelled towards increasingly self-destructive forms. Retrograde Prometheus, part a poetic narrative, and part speculative treatise, seeks to reformulate these categories through which we understand desire, along with all the existential, ethical, and political implications that such a radical change in perspective may entail. 

Biography

Christian Nirvana Damato is the editor of Inactual, a research, editorial and curatorial space dedicated to visual studies, contemporary art and new technologies. He is an authored and researcher, who has published several books, including Multiplication of Organs Manifesto (2025) on Becoming Press. His work is characterised by a certain sensitivity to the fragility of the world, yet coupled with a defiant curiosity towards technology that ensures his philosophical outlook remains enthusiastic and determined.

Author: Christian Nirvana Damato
Edition: 1^st
Date: April 2026
Cat^NO: (becoming)015A
ISBN: 978-9925-647-24-8 (Print)
Language: English

Format: Softcover
Binding: Sewn Binding
Dimensions: 11cm x 18cm
Pages: TBC
Umschlag: 170g/m² Munken Pure Rough
Innen: 70g/m² Holmen Book Cream
Printed by Tallin Print, Estonia

Price: €15

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