Comparing eastern and western literary works, we examine varied forms of technologies in relation to society and politics. Through the lens of Socrates’ and Heidegger’s concept of “techne” and Taoists’ “Jixin”, our group investigate technology’s potential for revolution and corruption. Encompassing works from Victorian Britain, Ireland, China, and Singapore, our four studies focus on the complicated interrogation of technologies in the literary narratives and cultural imagination. The panel starts with a study of The Invisible Man (1897) by H.G. Wells, a Victorian prototypical sci-fi. Drawing on the alienation critique by Karl Marx and Rahel Jaeggi, this interdisciplinary study of literature and philosophy explores the motif of alienation as a loss of command caused by capitalization on knowledge and power. This foreshadows a more unsettling moral dilemma in Mike McCormack’s Solar Bones (2016), where the posthumous protagonist-narrator recalls his family’s various reactions to the power oppression from politicians with different priorities. This study explores how postmodern and artistic narratives are employed as literary techniques to navigate through the moral dilemma by integrating technology with humanitarianism. Then the panel continues with the analysis of a contemporary Chinese novel, The Seventh Day (2013) by Yu Hua, which examines how misfortunes come into being in the lives of the characters, deeply entangled in the dialectic between technology and power. It argues that this novel warns against imprudent wielding of power with technology in modern society, a reminder of prudent choices in individuals. The panel concludes with The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia (2017-) by Ho Tzu Nyen. It explores how technology potentially expands aesthetic elements, employing virtual reality tech to immerse the audience in the experience of distorted history. By extending the technological canon as an artistic medium, he allows for imaginative explorations of a world free from the constraints of power dynamics. Comparing these narratives and works, we aim at uncovering how technology provides the source of power for individuals, how it enmeshes citizens in moral dilemmas of modern society, how it breeds misfortunes and manipulates the ruled once deployed by the ruling, how it embodies resistance against a society already governed by a system armed with technology. Considering the bold representation of the dialectic between technology and power in these literary and art works, we propose that literature, being “techne”/ “technique” per se, at once functions as a critical force, a resistance point, and a remedy to the technologies in the technologized society (polis). Therefore, our group read literature as an “alternative technology” and methodology (“art”/techne) that reflects the technological progression and resists moral “regression” within the framework of systematic power, governance, and socio-political-technical relations.