Forms of Intelligence (2020—) — Social Art Library

By

Kaajal Modi

A project exploring how different forms of animal and plant intelligence could inspire the design of technologies that benefit all living things.

Have you ever thought about how trees or a swarm of bees communicate with each other? Do you feel like you already communicate with your dog or house plant?

We are surrounded by intelligent animals and plants, but how much do we notice or learn from them? Do we feel part of nature or somehow separate? In 2019 a climate emergency was declared. In 2020 the global pandemic has starkly highlighted the impacts of continued environmental and social injustices. There is an urgency to open our eyes and ears, listen better to what is around us and consider how we can live better together.

This project seeks to explore; what could be designed and made to benefit of all living things in more connected ways? How might we think differently about ‘intelligence’ and could we design systems that combine a mix of non-human, artificial and human intelligence? Through 2020 this project has explored these questions through: remote podcasting, online workshops and artist commissions. Following a collaborative non hierarchical approach the project is underpinned by an ‘ethics of care’, where all human and non-human collaborators, with very different types of knowledges, are valued.

Activities include:

Podcasts: Knowle West resident Tatiana Powell took part in a digital journalism paid internship from Feb-Aug. She worked with KWMC producers to create a series of podcast interviews with people working in the realm of animal, plant or microbial intelligence. She interviewed people from Knowle West, Bristol, Kent, and Colombia ranging in age from 18-80 and including community activists, artists, and researchers with specialisms in: spiders and ants, trees, funghi, butterflies, local wildlife, soil, coral, gardening, bees, dogs, birds, robotics, wearables, performance and visual arts!

Workshops: Through the spring / summer lockdown of 2020 eight people who had been involved in the podcast interviews came together via zoom for a series of workshops to share knowledge, create principles for collaborating well across species and to begin exploring what could be made that could benefit humans, animals, plants and environments in more connected ways.

Artist commission: Created by Kaajal Modi as a response to a series of collaborative workshops with people who work with other organisms, as part of the Forms of Intelligence project with Knowle West Media Centre, Bristol. As a set of inspirational prompt cards, they are designed to encourage anyone working with others (human, animal, machine) to think more expansively about all living beings. The cards are accompanied by a book which I submitted with the main project, and should be downloaded double-sided, flip on short edge, and cut along the pink guidelines. A set of riso-printed cards will also be available to buy as of next year from https://shop.kwmc.org.uk/

The first phase of this project (Jan-Aug 2020) was supported by and made in collaboration with UWE’s Digital Cultures Research Centre.

To read the publication, Forms of Intelligence, scroll through the PDF below:

To download the Forms of Intelligence cards, click the PDF below:

More information: https://kwmc.org.uk/projects/formsofintelligence/

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Kaajal Modi

Kaajal Modi (she/they) is a multidisciplinary designer with a background in political visual communication, social and partipatory design and community-led food activism based on principles of critical care and mutual aid. Kaajal is currently conducting a practice-based PhD at the Digital Cultures Research Centre at UWE, Bristol, co-supervised through the Science Communication Unit. Their practice draws from collaborative design, speculative design, science communication and participatory art in order to build emergent methodologies that are inclusive, playful and exploratory. Through their research, they work with food fermentation practices in the kitchen as a way to explore our understandings of metabolic ecologies as extended through our bodies and our environments. They belive that by learning from and working with the knowledge, practices and cultural cosmologies of marginalised communities, in collaboration with the holders of that knowledge, we might find new ways of thinking climate futures where we all flourish.

kaajalmodi.com