We had prepared a mode of listening accordingly: open but critical.
paradox
How does the EU evaluate and position the arts and science as a bridge and driver of these twin transitions? And is it possible for such a high-level summit to take non-human perspectives and agents seriously without putting them together under a “natural” (blemished, monolithic) blanket?
Digital policy expert and member of NEB’s high-level roundtable, Francesca Bria, held the summit with a list of rising challenges and crises of our time. Systematic transformations and rapid changes, climate collapse and biodiversity collapse, trade wars, actual wars, fragmentation, threats to democratic systems.
She invokes the “European paradox” of talking about digital sovereignty while relying on foreign technology, relying on carbon-based systems and industrial models of fossil fuel fuels, while relying on climate commitments and defending ethical AI.
Of all this, the summit was to be an exercise towards a “vision of public purpose.”
Following Bria, American climate fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson, author of influential novels Future ministry. Instead of the Venice virus, Robinson caught a Covid19 case and was video call from Oslo.
Millionaire
With tea in hand, he warned that by relocating the Titanic deck chairs, he was approaching the challenge of maintaining a livable biosphere. To face countless systematic challenges, to rub off the critical eye of needles, he said, we need to bulk up the stories and attach science to fiction.
Of course, this is the purpose of NEB. Use art and storytelling to grow science and policy on both ecology and technology. But not at the same time. Morning ecology, afternoon technology.
To kick off the ecology section, Francesca Bria presided a panel with the EU Director of Environmental Environment and Patrick Anthony Child and former chairman of the German Advisory Committee, Hans Joachim Schelnharber.
How to move from law to action? “It’s fun for us in Brussels to legislate,” the child admitted, and commented in a commitmental manner on new future policies regarding the power of attorney, the circular economy and nature’s recovery.
Recognised by Bria as “Neb’s spiritual father,” Sheln Harbor performed a programmed dance on his unrealized project, “Flotta Alberi,” in front of Arsener, a fleet of boats cruising through the Venice seas, at an estimated cost of 5m euros.
Here, the Venice virus appears to be perfectly effective: “I tried to convince hundreds of millions of dollars,” he casually said, “But they don’t give me money — still. ”
reproduction
The morning was dedicated to rapid announcements from award winners, institutions and lighthouse projects representing the first wave of NEB’s orders.
Introducing Giulia Foscari “Voice of the Commons”EU-funded efforts to advocate on behalf of the four Global Commons Antarctica, the ocean, the atmosphere and outer space.
Danish design studio Super Flex It provided engaging presentations on design methods such as non-human clients, “expanded collectives.”
The following design principles: right angles, abandoning adult perspectives. Learn from fish and children’s schools. For the Megaproject Super Reef, they aim to reconstruct the 55km stone reef that had previously been extracted from the Danish coast. Is this something like geoengineering that you get it?
Nev Lighthouse Project ‘Bauhouse of the Seas Sale‘,introduction TBA21 Director Markus Reymann promisingly expands three core principles that are “sustainable” renewable and are more locally grounded than humans.
Joint design
As part of this vast project, 17 partner organizations, or “Drops,” from Europe’s 168,000-kilometre coastline cities, have entered a rewarding process with the pain of co-design.
All “drops” follow the principles Zoopan organizational model for including non-human stakeholders in the decision-making process by appointing “speakers for life” that exist in the room where it occurs.
For two years, representatives met quarterly to discuss, listen and devise strategies that promote the design of complex interactions between human and human agents in the EU, sometimes the world, and sometimes the world.
And onwards: Spanish housing units are 3D printed using local materials, community gardens and stormwater systems co-designed by Irish citizens and artists, and introduce the Art Science Engine. S+T+ Art and CultTech Association.
Audience attention faded by noon, as there was no room for breaks, discussions or questions.
Super Computing
In the afternoon, the focus of the summit shifted to technology, which made the energy in the room a kind of nervous excitement. Obviously, this is a more popular twin. “What is the latest European technology you use?” Francesca Bria addressed the room. ‘yes? i can’t hear you…’,
Bria is one of the main hearts behind it. EuroStacka proposed new infrastructure for European digital sovereignty.
How do we build an AI-Future for Europe defined by networking, co-founding, cultural diversity, institutions for artists, and assessment of cultural knowledge as a common interest rather than privatized capital?
First, put your artists in a supercomputing center. Representatives from the Barcelona Super Computing Centre and the High Performance Computing Centre in Stuttgart reported on the recently launched Artscience Collaboration.
They are still newbies and describe art as “excuses for doing some things”, “communication devices”, “team building tools”, but it is also a research engine and bridge builder. Only through these artscience initiatives was the two computing centres first contacting each other.
rejection
What kind of AI-related art is NEB Champion? Media artists Holly Hendon and Matt Dryhurst performed pieces of music from their work.”call‘, ‘Choral Ai’ trained recordings from 15 consent community choirs across the UK. This is not a human voice that has not been strangely reflected throughout the church of the 9th century. The idea for the future is to connect the code with European culture.
And to do that on our own terms: Francesca Bria has created a passionate case for Eurostack’s proposal on sovereign digital EU infrastructure to networks from raw materials to chips, cloud, software, data and AI. Digital “res publica”.
The proposal was scrutinized in a final “Showdown” panel, touted as “Post-Extracted Ecology: Alternative Data Center Futures.”
Marina Ortero Vergier visited data centres in arid regions of Spain and Chile and spoke about her grounded work in bringing communities dealing with water shortages to negotiation tables.
Technology philosopher Benjamin Bratton warned Europeans to quickly cycle through the “five stages of AI grief,” but Evgeny Morozov and Biennale Silver Lion winner Kate Crawford proposed a form of rejection.
connection
“I Plea Crawford spoke to all the architects and designers in the room. We need to do better. ”
The AI panel had everyone on the edge of the seat. That was all that was going to make the audience laugh when they received applause. Perhaps it was this closure note that followed the fragmented dinner conversation.
But how does it connect to stone reefs on the Danish coast, 3D printed clay houses in Spain, or slow collaborative research? Bauhaus of the Sea? In the archipelago of possible futures, where is the Arts and Science Bridges connecting twin transitions? Each other?
How about biodiversity conservation through Europe?The internet of animals‘? Where was the voice of artist and writer James Bridle? Do they assert the intelligence of animals and plants to expand our understanding of the types of artificial intelligence we may build, rather than replicating ourselves?
Are you experimenting with Perma-Computing and Fungal Networks? How can you get the same energy in a room for the same energy project as AI? Can AI art science also instill an ecological imaginary imagination?
perspective
If two transitions are twins, all cultural programs that deal with them are whispering in each other’s ears, ending each other’s sentences, and inseparable.
That’s what we need to find vocabulary and the scientific difference that we have a future after digital infrastructure extraction.
Dreaming of an archipelago of that possibility, ideally the NEB itself, the EU itself, will serve as the Zoöp as the “speaker” representing the “living” that represents the non-human members at all roundtables and summits while we are there.
Similarly, there is room for questions, discussion and breaks. We left the black suit behind along with the black suit mentality. If we want to be players then – play.
But to film today’s reality: at such a high level peak in 2025, is it possible to take the inhuman perspective and agency seriously, without putting them together under a “nature” (blemished monolithic) blanket? Yes, no.
Living Museum
Yes: NEB funds projects that promote this kind of understanding far beyond the isolated vision of the “spiritual father” (of expanded multi-groups, situational, ethical, more ethical than human relationships), and the platform for these projects is in front of high-level legislators.
No: There is a clear disconnect between ecological and technical thinking, and some distinctive ecological arts and science projects tend to turn into the realm of technofix solutions.
And once again, yes: artistic research is becoming an integral part of many Horizon Europe projects, with artists located within the supercomputing centre, guiding their understanding of quantum AI from the start.
This may turn negative concepts to your mind, as suggested by summit curator Jose Luis de Vicente. At best, Europe is a living museum.
This author
Anna Lina Ritz There is an MA in the Environmental Humanities at Ludwig Masimilian University in Munich. She writes and publishes independently about the intersection of art and ecology, mainly in the Amsterdam context where she lives and works.
This article is published through the Ecologist Writers Fund. Ask readers to donate and ask some authors to pay £250 for their work. please Donate now. You can learn more about the fund and create applications on our website.
