Abstract:
How does the materiality of the “body” shape thinking and being in the world? We take a wide view of the body, including human bodies, animal bodies, plants, and machines, but also institutions and structured processes.
In this seminar, we will start at the beginning of visual arts in cave paintings, read foundational texts about embodied perception, then move to machines and read key sections from James Bridle's book “Ways of Being” (2022), in which he uses his own artistic practice alongside natural and social sciences, philosophy, and speculation to investigate the shifting boundaries of what we call 'intelligence.' We will visit an exhibition on “more than human design” and look at water as a different materiality as a form of computation, both within a Western and a Chinese tradition.
Requirements:
Further Resources:
09:00–18:00, ZT 4.T37
On the birth of art, religion, and politics by neurologically modern humans, Upper Paleolithic (50'000-12'000 BC)
Lewis-Williams, David, E. Thomas Lawson, Knut Helskog, David S. Whitley, and Paul Mellars. 2003. “Review Feature: A Review of The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art by David Lewis-Williams.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 13 (2): 263–79. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774303000155.
Lewis-Williams, J. David. 2002. The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art. Thames & Hudson.
Watch: Werner Herzog: Cave of Forgotten Dreams, 89 min 2010, watch: 01:05:40 - 01:22:50
Afternoon
“Umwelt”: Relationship between subject and world
09:00–18:00 ZT 3.K08
Analog institutions, AI systems, and Biology
Brian Eno and James Bridle on Ways of Being, 2022, 60 min
09:00–18:00 ZT 3.K13
Plant Intelligence
Afternoon
Exhibition: More than Human—Designing with Nature https://museum-gestaltung.ch/en/exhibition/more-human-designing-nature
Task: Choose one work. Make a short presentation: How is the non-human modeled? What materialities are involved? What role do they play?
official holiday, school closed
09:00–12:00 ZT 6.F01
Water/flow-based Computation
Bridle, James. 2022. Ways of Being: Beyond Human Intelligence. Allen Lane
Vanessa Bosch
Ioana Vreme Moser
Mi, You. 2025. “A Different Endpoint Qian Xuesen and Cosmotechnics.” In Machine Decision Is Not Final: China and the History and Future of Artificial Intelligence, edited by Benjamin H. Bratton, Anna Greenspan, Amy Ireland, and Bogna Konior. Urbanomic.
Yuk Hui, 2017. Cosmotechnics as Cosmopolitics, e-flux, issue #86
Shi Qing (石青), Qian Xuesen and the Yangtze River Computer (钱学森和长江计算机), single-channel video, 2021.
Review, Feedback, End