The Antikythera mechanism was among the earliest known computers. Discovered on the Greek island of Antikythera, it combined calculation, orientation and cosmology. For the programme, “Antikythera” refers to a computational technology that discloses and accelerates the deeper condition of planetary intelligence.

Computation today poses technical challenges and contradictions; it also demands deep political and philosophical reconsideration. Ultimately, it challenges how intelligence comprehends itself. The scientific idea of “climate change,” for example, is a conceptual accomplishment of planetary-scale computation. It is the output of sensors, simulations and supercomputers. As such, computation has made the contemporary notion of the planetary and the ‘Anthropocene’ conceivable, accountable, and actionable.

Technologies generate ideas as much as ideas generate technologies, but today technology has outpaced theory. All too often the response is to superimpose inherited ideas about ethics, scale, governance, and meaning onto situations that in fact demand a different framework. Instead, the Antikythera program will generate new ideas from a direct interdisciplinary engagement with the past, present and potential futures of planetary computation.

Antikythera’s Affiliate Researchers and practitioners develop new philosophy, research and speculative design. The programme will host a five-month interdisciplinary and international design-research Studio in early 2023, where Studio Researchers will participate in intensive seminars, design workshops, and prototyping platforms. Studio outputs take form as technology and theory, cinema and code, and platforms and policy that steer computation towards a more viable future.

Antikythera is directed by philosopher of technology Benjamin Bratton. Antikythera is developed and housed within the Berggruen Institute, and the Studio is supported by One Project.

Specific areas of focus for the Antikythera programme will work on large foundational models, natural and artificial language, models of mind, animal cognition, urban automation, machine sensing, anthropic bias, and the global history of machine intelligence beyond standard Western narratives. The questions posed must be drawn from diverse cultures and contexts but also invented in concert with the ongoing evolution of intelligence in all its guises. The planetary future of AI extends and alters conceptions of artificiality and what intelligence’s provenance may be.

Antikythera’s five-month speculative design-research Studio runs from February to June 2023. Studio Researchers from diverse professional backgrounds (including all design disciplines, architecture, computer science, economics, philosophy, history, science and technologies studies, political science, digital media, filmmaking, and others) will take part in collaborative design briefs, theory seminars, and technical workshops to create projects contributing to a growing body of research building on the program’s themes. Project outcomes will take form as theory, cinema, software, models, prototypes, policies and more. Concepts ideated during the Studio may be further developed through a network of supporters after the five-month program. The Studio is directed by designer and creative director Nicolay Boyadjiev.

Programme participants work on various changing multidisciplinary team-based briefs throughout the program, driven by the Antikythera research themes. Researchers apply their practical skills and theoretical perspectives to collaborative project research and concept development ranging from strategic plans, cinematic proposals, software and/ or programs, and policies. There are no plans for any individually initiated projects at this time.