Seminar Overview

Through modes of shared study, rehearsal, and iterative dialogue with invited artists, thinkers, and the public, the VLC Seminar Series develops and presents artistic and scholarly research centered on the Vera List Center’s 2025–2027 Focus Theme, Matter of Intelligence.

A multi-platform research program, Matter of Intelligence, explores the origins, manifestations, and implications of intelligence across species, systems, and societies through art and critical inquiry. Matter of Intelligence considers intelligence not just as an abstract concept, but as something that manifests with tangible, material implications—whether through human cognition, natural processes, or artificial systems—and actively shapes and impacts our understanding and relations with the immaterial and physical worlds. 

The Matter of Intelligence Seminar Series—comprising twelve sessions convened from September 2025 through May 2027—is conceived as an open curriculum and a site for collective inquiry. The seminars, alongside other VLC programs and initiatives, aim to question, rethink, and unsettle received notions of what intelligence is, what it does, and what it might yet become. Each seminar examines how intelligence is defined, expressed, and mobilized across various domains, including biological, social, technological, ecological, institutional, historical, and others. 

In a moment defined by the speculative promises of artificial intelligence and the pervasive undoing of intellectual life, these exchanges proposition and respond to emerging urgencies, shifting perspectives, and diverse modes of inquiry. Each seminar is paired with a curated reader on the Matter of Intelligence Are.na channel, grounding the dialogue and opening new paths for exploration.

The Matter of Intelligence seminars are presented as part of the Barbara Jordan Lectures: The State of Democracy series and are organized by Eriola Pira and Carin Kuoni.