The Next Earth: Computation, Crisis, Cosmology
Palazzo Diedo — Berggruen Arts & Culture
Opening Reception May 9th
Symposium & Journal Launch May 10th

Palazzo Diedo Berggruen Arts & Culture, in collaboration with Antikythera and MIT Architecture, are pleased to announce the exhibition The Next Earth: Computation, Crisis, Cosmology, a Collateral Event at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.

Bringing together two leading research initiatives, Antikythera’s The Noocene: Computation and Cosmology from Antikythera to AI and MIT Architecture’s Climate Work: Un/Worlding the Planet, this exhibition confronts urgent questions about our planet’s future and the role of architecture in shaping it. Between the cosmic reality of our planet and the ways in which we construct our understanding of it, The Next Earth fosters a dynamic conversation about our current ecological moment and the futures we must begin to imagine. By juxtaposing and synthesizing planetary computation and climate-conscious architectural practice, the exhibition challenges us to rethink the scale and span of human action in relation to Earth’s systems.

Spanning two floors, The Next Earth stages a conversation between Antikythera’s and MIT Architecture’s current research on climate, cosmology and computation. Antikythera examines the Earth as an evolving megastructure, through artifacts from the winding history of early Modern philosophy, astronomy and cosmology. In conversation with Antikythera’s planetary focus, MIT Architecture presents a kaleidoscope of thirty-seven different takes on what it has meant and what it might mean to practice with an eye to the planetary ramifications of architecture and design. The Next Earth: Computation, Crisis, Cosmology challenges visitors to reconsider humanity's environmental impact and technological future.
The Noocene: Computation and Cosmology from Antikythera to AI explores the evolution of planetary computation as an accidental megastructure through which Earth systems, spanning molecular to atmospheric scales, become comprehensible and composable. The “Noocene” refers to how the evolution of complex intelligence has caused a comprehensive terraforming of Earth, one that it itself is only beginning to comprehend. The Noocene focuses on the role of computation in the transformation of cosmological perspectives, both scientific and existential. The exhibition features the work of the Antikythera think-tank with Giga Studio, Peter Galison with Robert Pietrusko and Stewart Smith, Gašper and Nina Beguš with Metahaven, and Google Paradigms of Intelligence: Blaise Agüera y Arcas and Alexander Mordvintsev.

This epoch is defined by a paradox. At the same historical moment that complex intelligence begins to grasp its own evolution, it also begins to recognize that its success may undermine the foundations of its future. What is the role of computation and cosmology in both recognitions? How might this epoch come to better understand itself and thus orient itself?
Exhibition Opening Events @ Palazzo Diedo
Fondamenta Diedo
Cannaregio 2386, Venice

The Next Earth – Opening Reception
May 9th, 7–10pm
No RSVP required

Antikythera x MIT Architecture Symposium & Journal Launch
May 10th, 10
No RSVP required
10:00–11:45
MIT Architecture Showcase

12:00–12:45
The Next Earth — The Convergence of Antikythera & MIT Architecture
Conversation between Benjamin Bratton, Nicholas de Monchaux, Nicolay Boyadjiev, Ana Miljacki and Calvin Zhong

1:00–2:30
Antikythera & MIT Press Journal Launch
Benjamin Bratton and Nicolay Boyadjiev in rotational conversation with:
Gašper and Nina Beguš, Lukáš Likavčan, Philip Maughan, Thomas Moynihan, Chen Qiufan, Winnie Street, Nicholas de Monchaux, and Daniel van der Velden & Vinca Kruk of Metahaven

2:30–3:30
Antikythera & MIT Press Book Series Celebration
A conversation between Benjamin Bratton and Blaise Agüera y Arcas, author of the inaugural releases What is Life? and What is Intelligence?

Biofilia deficiency syndrom je dobrej termin .]]


Resurrecting Gaia: harnessing the Free Energy Principle to preserve life as we know it

This paper applies the Free Energy Principle (FEP) to propose that the lack of action in response to the global ecological crisis should be considered a maladaptive symptom of human activity that we refer to as biophilia deficiency syndrome. The paper is organised into four parts: the characterisation of the natural world under the Gaia Hypothesis, the employment of the FEP as a description of the behavior of self-organising systems, the application of the FEP to Gaia to understand coupling dynamics between living systems and purportedly non-living planetary processes, and the offering of positive interventions for addressing the current state of ecological crisis under this framework. For the latter, we emphasize the importance of perturbing stuck states for healthy development, and the necessary appreciation of life existing as nested systems at multiple levels in a hierarchy. We propose the development of human biophilia virtue in accordance with the FEP as a practical intervention for treating biophilia deficiency syndrome and helping to safeguard the balance of planetary processes and the integrity of living systems that depend on them, offering some examples of what this might look like in practice. Overall, this paper provides novel insights into how to catalyse meaningful ecological change, proposing a deliberate and disruptive approach to addressing the dysfunctional relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world.

Frontiers | Resurrecting Gaia: harnessing the Free Energy Principle to preserve life as we know it
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1206963/full?

The Indian Ocean Has the World's Largest Gravity 'Black Hole' and It's Finally Explained
https://earthlymission.com/indian-ocean-geoid-low-iogl-largest-gravity-hole-anomaly-solved/

The "Potsdam Gravity Potato" shows the differences in gravity on Earth's surface. It has a potato-like shape due to variations in Earth's mass distribution, causing local gravitational anomalies that appear as an irregular shape when mapped.

The Indian Ocean has the world's largest gravity 'black hole,' which is the most recessed part of the potato (marked with blue). This spot is called the Indian Ocean Geoid Low (IOGL), and it is the largest gravity anomaly on our planet, covering an area of about 3 million square kilometers, almost the size of India itself. Due to the low gravity there, the sea level over the IOGL is up to 106 m (348 ft) lower than the global average. That means if you were to sail across the anomaly, you would be closer to Earth's center than anywhere else on the ocean

A bizarre ancient organism previously thought to be a giant fungus may actually belong to an undiscovered branch of the tree of life that mysteriously went extinct.

Prototaxites, which lived between 420 million and 375 million years ago, was the first giant terrestrial life form to inhabit Earth. It grew trunk-like structures up to 8 metres tall and 1 metre wide.

Its fossils were first discovered in 1843 and were initially thought to be the trunks of rotten conifers. Their classification has been a matter of intense debate, but in 2007, Kevin Boyce at Stanford University, California, and his colleagues concluded from the carbon isotopes in the fossils that they were a kind of fungus.

Prototaxites: Bizarre fossil may have been an entirely new type of life | New Scientist
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2473272-bizarre-fossil-may-have-been-an-entirely-new-type-of-life/

Krok co může vést k víc evidence-based řízení. Jensen Huang předpokládá, že teď se začnou činnosti monitorovat a předkládat AI k tokenizaci, aby se modely učily z reality jak svět funguje (versus z knih). Bylo by hezké, kdyby byla poptávka obecně pochopit děje (lidi, skupiny, biomy, ..), sbíralo a modelovalo všechno možné, .. možnost pak těch Dashboardu "co se teď děje"

https://x.com/i/grok/share/1Ug5tJQBW4hqbeGWK1c5m9tmC

manaus

2025 Beyond the closed-forest paradigm: Cross-scale vegetation structure in temperate Europe before the late-Quaternary megafauna extinctions
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2950475925000061


Beyond the Closed-Forest Paradigm: Rethinking Temperate Europe’s Natural Landscapes

Our new study, co-authored with an international team, challenges the long-standing assumption that Europe’s temperate landscapes were uniformly covered by closed forest before human impact. Here, using state-of-the-art pollen analyses we reconstruct vegetation patterns from the Last Interglacial (~129,000–116,000 years ago) - prior to the human-driven megafauna extinction - and uncover a highly heterogeneous landscape—not the dense, continuous forests often assumed.

Key Findings:

✅ Mosaic Landscapes: At a local scale (~9 km²), vegetation was a dynamic mix: 17% open areas, 21% closed forests, and 63% light woodlands (composed of disturbance-adapted plants) —far from a uniform dense forest.

✅ Weak Climate Correlations: Surprisingly, climate alone did not strongly predict vegetation openness, suggesting that local-scale factors and disturbances played a key role.

✅ Scale Matters: Local and regional vegetation patterns were only weakly correlated, highlighting the importance of fine-scale heterogeneity in understanding past ecosystems.

✅ The Role of Megafauna: Large herbivores likely played a key role in shaping this landscape, maintaining openness and biodiversity through grazing and browsing—a perspective with key implications for conservation, restoration, reforestation, and rewilding.

🌍 These findings challenge the classic closed-forest paradigm and provide crucial insights for biodiversity conservation and restoration strategies today.