Book Launch: Other Intelligences

We’re celebrating the launch of the publication Other Intelligences, which accompanies the current exhibition at HEK. Curators Sabine Himmelsbach and Marlene Wenger, together with participating artists, will offer insights into the exhibition and the new released publication. The focus lies on diverse forms of intelligence – artificial, organic, and technological – and how they shape our understanding of ecology and society.

For a long time, the human brain was considered the sole measure of intelligence – but this notion is increasingly being challenged. As artificial intelligence (AI) develops capabilities that were once seen as uniquely human, other, non-human forms of intelligence – such as those found in the animal and plant kingdoms – are also coming into sharper focus.

This publication presents projects by international artists including Alice Bucknell, Špela Petrič, and Patricia Domínguez, whose works engage with both of these dimensions of non-human intelligence: the technological and the ecological – the latter at risk due to the ongoing loss of biodiversity. Accompanying essays by leading researchers reflect on which kinds of intelligence may be essential for shaping the future. How might AI be used in ways that benefit society and support ecological interdependence?

With contributions from Anil Kumar Seth, Yvonne Volkart, Joanna Zylinska, among others.