What does it mean to speak of intelligence at the scale of the planet—the cosmos?

Cosmic Intelligence, co-presented as part of the Matter of Intelligence Seminar Series and Performance Space New York as part of the We The Youth: Keith Haring Lecture for Kids, explores the possibility that intelligence is not only of the mind, but emerges through planetary, cosmic, relational, and distributed systems—woven into the very dynamics that shape existence across scale. From stars and weather systems to magnetic fields, ocean currents to galaxies and constellations, what forms of knowing, sensing, or responding are already at play in the workings of the Earth and the cosmos? Could the cosmos itself be understood as intelligent, not metaphorically, but materially, operationally? A field of interactivity and potentiality? What does it mean to think with a planet? What does the cosmos know? Are there other forms of intelligent life out there?

Drawing from thinkers and practitioners across astrophysics, astrobiology, philosophy, and the arts, this program invites an engagement with scale, agency, and the limitations of anthropocentric thought. In an era marked by ecological collapse, space colonization, and machine learning, it shifts the question from escape to entanglement: What does it mean to think with a planet? What does the cosmos know? How might such expanded thinking reshape ethics, responsibility, and imagination in a time of planetary crisis? 

Keynote speaker and other details to be announced.

Matter of Intelligence Seminar Series
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. Comprising twelve sessions convened from September 2025 through May 2027—the Seminar Series is conceived as an open curriculum and a site for collective 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.