20.01.2022
10:00 – 17:30
Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, University of Sussex, Brighton UK
Reservations and more info HERE

Do all forms of life possess some kind of perception? Is there an “experience of the world” in other species that we can speak meaningfully about? Or does our human-centred perspective make understanding other life on their own terms impossible? This full-day symposium brings together acclaimed artists and scientists to reflect on these questions from their own work. The day will be eclectic and diverse, presenting a combination of both artistic imaginations and rigorous scientific research that bring us closer to the life worlds of plants and fungi, crows and cuttlefish and even communities of cells and microbes. Whatever your thoughts about how life perceives, we hope to unsettle them, and leave you more curious than when you arrived.

Life Perceives is curated & organised by iii member Jonathan Reus, George Kafetzis, Will Roseby, Mikkel Roald-Arbøl, who are doctoral researchers within the interdisciplinary “From Sensation and Perception to Awareness” research programme at the University of Sussex. This programme and its activities are funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

Featuring contributions from Michael Levin, Anil Seth, Paco Calvo, Lucia Pietroiusti, Filipa Ramos, Sissel Marie Tonn, Alex Jordan, Katie Bentley, Andrew Adamatzky, Daisy Lafarge, Irina Petrova Adamatzky, Nicky Clayton and Mark Baldwin OBE

This is a full-day event open to the general public, featuring short talks, open discussions, and artistic interventions.

The symposium will be accompanied by an art exhibition featuring work by award-winning photographer Irina Petrova Adamatzky, and a new immersive/interactive work, The Sentinel Self, by Danish artist Sissel Marie Tonn, who was artist in residence at the University of Sussex, Sussex Humanities Lab in 2022.

The exhibition will be open daily at the ACCA from January 16-20th.

We also would like to thank the Sussex Humanities Lab, Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science and the ACCA for their support.