In his 1970 “New Plea for Diagonal Science,” ex-surrealist Roger Caillois called for deeper correspondences between humanist aesthetic research and the “natural” sciences. “Research itself suffers,” he wrote, “when each scientist, burrowing away in his own special tunnel as if he were some efficient and myopic mole, operates like a complete maverick, like a miner who is digging ever deeper, almost utterly unaware of the discoveries made by fellow workers in neighbouring galleries, and even more so of the results in distant quarries. What we need are relay stations at every level.”
For Caillois, a ”diagonal” science cuts across methodologies by radically centring common objects. The BMO Lab aims to do just this for machine learning and artificial intelligence, establishing “relay stations” between researchers with shared interest in what AI reveals about our social, aesthetic, and natural worlds.
Created by Douglas Eacho and now led by Sarah Bay-Cheng, the Diagonal reading group and speaker series hosts conversations among scholars, technologists, and creators on the philosophical, political, artistic, economic, and scientific consequences of recent developments in AI and other emergent technologies. We facilitate shared conversations among Toronto-based colleagues and international collaborators. To join the group, including a shared library of past readings, contact Sarah Bay-Cheng: s.baycheng@utoronto.ca.
2025 – 2026 Meetings and Events
Reading Group: Shannon Vallor’s The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking, 2024. 14 May 2026.
Reading Group: John Müller’s Prometheanism: Technology, Digital Culture and Human Obsolescence, 2016. 17 April 2026.
Reading Group: Miguel Sicart’s Playing Software: Homo Ludens in Computational Culture, 2023. 12 March 2025.
Speaker Series: Prof. Caden Manson (Big Art Group and Sarah Lawrence College), “Big Art Group’s Fiasco”. 5 March 2026.
Reading Group: Selections from Yuk Hui’s Cybernetics for the 21st Century, Vol 1: Epistemological Reconstruction, 2024. 13 February 2026.
Speaker Series: Dr. Gina Bloom (UC Davis), “Scaling Up Applied Theatre through an AI-Powered Video Game” 4 February 2026. This talk examines how video games can extend a long tradition of socially engaged performance known as “applied theatre,” in which participants in a dramatized scenario rehearse responses to ethical, social, or professional issues they face in the real world.
Speaker Series: Dr. Michael Newman (Goldsmiths, University of London), “Maddening the Machine: Drawing and AI.” 20 January 2026. Building on his earlier engagement with drawing as trace in Derrida and drawing on drawing as disegno and scribble in the Renaissance, Michael Newman will explore the double nature of drawing: as trace of what has passed, associated with memory, and as generativity, associated with the future. Read more
Reading Group: Joseph Weizenbaum’s Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation, 1976. 3 December 2025. This was our last meeting with Douglas Eacho before he took up his new role as Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore. Thank you, Doug!
Reading Group: Lief Weatherby’s Language Machines: Cultural AI and the End of Remainder Humanism, 2025. 8 September 2026.
Past Meetings and Events
- Diagonal: “Enchanting Infrastructure: New Approaches to AI” – Feb. 5, 2021Here is the recording of the event: (the very active chat that took place during this event is presented in full below.) How should the recent explosion of research, investment, and discourse around “artificial intelligence” be critically understood? Which methods, traditions, and narratives from the humanities and social sciences are fit to grasp these unusual… Read more: Diagonal: “Enchanting Infrastructure: New Approaches to AI” – Feb. 5, 2021
- Diagonal Reading Group: “Cloud Ethics” by Louise Amoore – Jan 8, 2021On January 8th, The Diagonal Reading Group held its second meeting. We discussed Louise Amoor’s Cloud Ethics: Algorithms and the Attributes of Ourselves and Others. It was again a lively and invigorating discussion. Thanks to everyone who participated! Doug Eacho’s Invitation prior to the event: Louise Amoore is a Professor of Geography at the University… Read more: Diagonal Reading Group: “Cloud Ethics” by Louise Amoore – Jan 8, 2021
- Diagonal Reading Group: “Anatomy of an AI.” – Dec. 10December 10, 2020: Kate Crawford’s and Vladen Jolar’s “Anatomy of an AI.” On December 10, Diagonal held its first session, discussing Kate Crawford’s and Vladen Jolar’s “Anatomy of an AI.” We dug into Crawford’s attention to the material infrastructure supporting internet-of-things/”AI” devices such as the Amazon Echo, with wide praise for the project’s focus on… Read more: Diagonal Reading Group: “Anatomy of an AI.” – Dec. 10