Recent advances in artificial life, artificial intelligence and artificial animacy (of which “robotics” is the singularly important form) seem to point to a new convergence of these into a more comprehensive artificialization. But what is ‘the artificial’ exactly? How is it different from the evolved if evolution selects for a species’ capacity to artificialize its environment to support greater capture of energy, information, and matter?

The Next Earth staged a dialogue between two pioneering research initiatives: Antikythera’s The Noocene: Computation and Cosmology from Antikythera to AI and MIT Architecture’s Climate Work: Un/Worlding the Planet. Installed on adjacent floors of Palazzo Diedo Berggruen Arts & Culture during the 19th International Venice Architecture Biennale, the event puts the two concepts in dialogue, raising urgent questions about our shared past, present, and futures and how philosophy and architecture must respond to planetary-scale crises.

Planetary Sapience presented Antikythera’s speculative philosophy of computational technologies and planetary intelligence through a day-long symposium. The event featured short presentations of new work from Antikythera’s forthcoming digital Journal followed by lively discussion on the program’s key topics.