Sensing Otherness / Navigating the more-than-human world

How can we get to know more-than-human worlds better? Which senses do we need and how do we train them? Or do we need additional sensors and perhaps even new (body) languages to truly connect and experience kinship?

For a long time, humans assumed that language made them unique and superior. But paradoxically, thanks in part to technology, we are discovering more and more complex communication systems between non-human animals, plants and the earth. It is high time we learn to listen to these as well, instead of just listening to each other, when that is already proving so difficult.

Sensing Otherness | Navigating the more-than-human world zooms in on how artists and designers, working closely with scientists, explore these complex conversations between a wide variety of living species and ecosystems. Remarkably, ancient mythological knowledge and advanced sensors and artificial intelligences seem to reinforce each other. We are now especially acoustically witnessing life happening in the remotest corners of the earth and the deepest depths of the oceans and we want to give this life recognition and meaning. At the same time, it makes us increasingly aware of the far-reaching, often poisonous and destructive influences, we human animals have on soil, air and water.

How this brings us closer to the more-than-human world, and how we bring it closer to us, is explored by the two BAD Award-winning teams from 2024 each in their own way. And this goes as well for the eight other artists and collectives coming together in Sensing Otherness. So come to MU this winter, train your senses and navigate beyond the limits of your human perception.

Participating artists

Carla Alcalà Badias & Laura Villanueva | Microbial Prophetesses (BAD AWARD 24)

Emilia Tapprest & Samar Khan | Ecotonal Beings (BAD AWARD 24)

affect lab | Waiting for Cows (PREMIÈRE)

Disnovation.org | The Solar Share & Eating the Sun

Herwig Ilegems | Head to Head

Jan van IJken | Planktonium

Marit Shalem | Milk (PREMIÈRE)

Saša Spačal |Terra Xenobiotica

Xandra van der Eijk | Mother of Pearl

Zuika Owada | The Eyes Tell You The Truth

Visit Sensing Otherness / Navigating the more-than-human world

until March 16 2025 at MU Hybrid Art House, Torenallee 40-06 in Eindhoven.