The Chimerical Intelligence Lab is a transdisciplinary space for exploring the intersections of technology, ecology, and reflective exploration. Moving beyond traditional paradigms, the Lab embraces a hands-on approach to experimenting with do-it-yourself technologies, generative coding, systems tinkering, autonomous hosting, and exploratory artistic practices. The Lab also emphasizes collaborations, both in-person and remote, recognizing that many team members contribute from different locations.
Our goal is to empower individuals and communities to question, deconstruct, and reimagine the technological frameworks shaping their lives. We believe in fostering an experimental ethos, where the process of building, breaking, and iterating becomes a vital form of inquiry.
Chimerical Intelligence symbolizes the melding of diverse elements into a cohesive whole, reflecting the concept of intelligence as a distributed phenomenon rather than a singular human-centric property. The term "chimerical" draws from the idea of beings composed of multiple parts, emphasizing the multifaceted and interconnected nature of intelligence. At the Lab, we approach intelligence as a phenomenon with many faces, spread across systems and contexts. By identifying and engaging with these diverse aspects, we strive to deepen our understanding of complex systems and foster a methodology that combines speculative exploration with rigorous, grounded inquiry.
The lab investigates the epistemologies that govern scientific, technological, spatial and economic practices and dissect the geometries displaying ‘objective’ facts in order to highlight the cognitive agency that has been outsourced (or given up) to those artefacts. Such ‘intelligent’ automation is perfectly illustrated by financial metrics, which attempt to offer a consistent framework of universal equivalence actually imposes violent, reductive depiction of the living, that ultimately serve the extractive agenda of capitalism. We aim to cultivate a mindset of curiosity and critical engagement with technology, enabling participants to become active creators rather than passive consumers. By fostering a culture of experimentation, Chimerical Intelligence Lab invites you to imagine and build alternative futures where technology serves people—not the other way around.
Investigating how technology acts as a bridge and interpreter across disciplines, reshaping the boundaries between art, ecology, and systems thinking.
Engaging with systems—digital and physical—to uncover their possibilities and limitations.
Emphasizing the creation and exploration of knowledge through self-authored snippets, excerpts, and visual arrangements. These processes culminate in the development of 'phase spaces' as conceptual tools to map and engage with complex ideas.
Learn moreConducting thought experiments and building prototypes that critique and expand traditional technological paradigms.
The Lab operates at the confluence of art, science, and technology. It draws on critical frameworks from philosophy, architecture, and computation to examine and challenge dominant narratives about progress and innovation. By creating small-scale, replicable projects, the Lab investigates how alternative technological practices can foster autonomy, sustainability, and resilience.
The Lab’s raison d’être is to reconcile the epistemological and ontological break between finance and ecology at planetary (Spivak, Bratton) scale. Beyond a solutionist approach, this thought experiment of the chimerical intelligence (CI) design demands non-linear thinking and instead forces us to dive into the entangled ramifications over multitude of physical and metaphysical domains. Such journey calls for a collection of reflective detours, unraveling all the hegemonic dichotomies of ‘modernity’ (Latour) about nature/culture (Descola), natural/artificial, animate/ inanimate (Bennett) object/subject, object/space, body/environment (Haraway), thinking/sensing (Escobar), body/mind (Maturana, Varela), mind/matter (Bergson), matter/space, space/time (Einstein), wave/particle, physical/conceptual (Barad), physics/philosophy (Bohr), etc.
Our workshops center on a unique archival research practice that incorporates self-authored snippets and text excerpts. This primarily visual process is materialized and arranged on a large canvas, culminating in what we call a phase space—a conceptual and creative framework for mapping complex ideas. These sessions provide participants with hands-on engagement in exploring this method, fostering collaborative inquiry and artistic discovery.
Conversations and events that spark dialogue on the ethical and societal implications of technology.
Learn morePartnering with artists, technologists, and thinkers to develop projects that challenge conventional perspectives.
Providing resources and tools to foster technological inquiry and archival research. This includes delving into the Lab's phase space framework, where visual archival practices and conceptual mapping converge to explore complex ideas.
Presenting the outcomes of our archival research and phase space explorations through curated exhibitions. These showcase the dynamic interplay of text, visuals, and conceptual mappings, creating immersive environments for dialogue and critical reflection.
Chimerical Intelligence Lab is powered by a dynamic team of thinkers, creators, and practitioners from diverse fields, including art, architecture, computing, and philosophy. The core members are:
Whether you're an artist, coder, tinkerer, or just curious about exploring the intersection of technology and creativity, we invite you to collaborate, learn, and experiment with us. Let's push the boundaries of what's possible—together.
For more information, feel free to contact us or explore our ongoing projects and upcoming events on this site.
The Lab operates in various levels: textual, visual but also performative. What it means is that a great part of the research process and knowledge dissemination happens from the gathering of people within a same room. In other words, the Lab engages strongly in the design of spaces to sparkle dialogs nurturing the thought experiments we are pursuing. In a simplified picture, this could be expressed at three stratums: