ECOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE (EI)

The looming environmental crisis urges us to think ecologically. Yet, to think ecologically does not only mean to concern ourselves with the impact that human actions have on our environment; it also requires us to rethink the concepts of agency and intelligence. In other words, it requires us to break out of the dated anthropocentric episteme that frames humans as active and self-contained agents that stand in opposition to the mindless and inert nature as their rulers. Fully fledged ecological intelligence is able to go beyond human exceptionalism and think in a more distributed manner, on a plane where everything is interconnected and in interaction. On this horizontal plane, agency and thought emerge and fade away within these very interactions, where minerals, bacteria, and bodies of water intermingle with flows of data, oil, and capital.

The new paradigm in thinking agency and intelligence demands a fresh look at the concepts of inclusion and diversity. Our Autumn School places this task within the scope of what we term “ecological intelligence,” defined as the entanglements of human and nonhuman agencies. This will be approached from two different perspectives. On our first day, the theme of ecological intelligence will be examined from the perspective of environmental humanities and posthumanism. The topics will include considerations of environmental humanities as an evolving academic field; and teaching practical “political ecology”. On the second day, we will consider the theme of ecological intelligence in relation to computational technologies, machine learning and AI. Our exploration will resist the distinction between intelligent human agents, and inert or stochastic tools, and seeks to rethink concepts such authorship, labour, and creativity for the age of machine learning and datafication. By examining the involvements of anonymous networks of nonhuman enablers, actants, and accomplices, we seek to rethink the dangers and potentials of the ecologies we inhabit.