About this Event
The naming of Artificial Intelligence has long been contested. Emerging partly in distinction from cybernetics — a field grounded in feedback and recursion — AI made a novel proposal that ‘intelligence’ could be formalised, a move that nonetheless further acquiesced in the idea that it could be simulated, computed, and engineered. In doing so, machines came to appear as entities capable of ‘thinking’: learning from data and solving problems. Yet what AI systems actually perform is often statistical inference, prediction, and approximation. Intelligence, in this context, is narrowed to the modern alphabetical-oriented linguistic logic: prediction, pattern, and efficiency — far flattened from the word’s richer and more layered meanings: wisdom, perception, intuition, and embodied experience.
Through a thematic sharing from Berlin-based scholar, researcher, and writer Penny Yiou Peng, Cultivating A.I. Beyond Artificial Intelligence will revisit the concept of intelligence (zhìnéng, 智能), and wisdom (zhìhuì, 智慧). Drawing from both Chinese and English etymological lineage surrounding these terms, Peng will explore what gets lost — and what might be reclaimed — when intelligence is rendered ‘artificial.’ In contrast to dominant paradigms of AI centred on optimisation and prediction, her sideways mode of thinking repositions ‘artificial intelligence/wisdom’ within an ecological and situated cultural context — asking whether alternative forms of knowing might still be articulated: relational, adaptive, sensory, and imaginative.
Following the talk, Peng and Milia Xin Bi — current Curator-in-Residence at esea contemporary — will open the conversation to questions of language, the temporalities embedded within intelligence systems, and how we might encounter technological systems in the domain of ‘huì’ (慧, wisdom).
This event is free to attend. Booking is essential due to limited capacity.
About Penny Yiou Peng 彭憶歐
is an interdisciplinary writer, scholar, and dramaturg based in Berlin, with roots in Beijing. Her work spans philosophy, performance, and ecological-sensing dramaturgy, engaging Daoist cosmology, critical posthumanism, technology, genetics, rituals, and archaeology of the senses. She examines how artistic and linguistic practices might reach the edges of perception and translate the ineffable into collective experience.
She holds a double BA in Economics and Film Studies from Smith College (USA), an MA in Film Studies from University College London (UK), and a PhD in Philosophy from the Institute for Theatre Studies, Free University Berlin (DE). Her writing has appeared in LEAP, Ocula Magazine, Art News, Art Review, Spike Art Magazine, Ars Electronica, CTM Festival, Norberg Festival, and MetaEye. Her peer-reviewed articles have been published in journals including the Journal of Body, Space, Technology; Performance Research; and Stedelijk Studies, among others. Peng has taught as a guest lecturer at Free University Berlin, NYU Shanghai, and Bard College Berlin. She is currently editing her book ‘On the Edge of Performance’ (2027/2028).
Milia Xin Bi
Milia Xin Bi is a curator and writer based in Glossop, UK. Her curatorial practice explores how artistic practices can question the instrumental logic of technology and propose alternative narratives for how technology might be lived with. Her research explores multi-temporalities, manifold materialities, and mediated agency emerging from complex systems.
Milia was most recently Curator-in-Residence at FACT Liverpool (2025–2026), where her residency exhibition Can Meeple Escape the Neurophoria? was presented. Alongside this role, she has been an integral part of Chronus Art Center (CAC) since 2017, where she has led and contributed to numerous interdisciplinary projects. She is also the recipient of the Hyundai Blue Prize Art+Tech 2022.
Image credit:
- CROSSLUCID, Tidal Transmissions: Navigation, 2026. Video still, output from multi-agent system for Ocean Sensing, T I D E, 50:10 min, 2026. Originally commissioned by the Fonds Cantonal d'Art Contemporain Geneva for the MIRE Public Art Program. Courtesy of the artist.
- Portrait of Penny Yiou Peng. Original Visual Design by Shuyi Cao2. Portrait of Penny Yiou Peng. Original Visual Design by Shuyi Cao.
- Event visual: Original image by Yuro Huang; visual design by Penny Yiou Peng.
About esea contemporary
esea contemporary is the UK’s only non-profit art centre specialising in presenting and platforming artists and art practices that identify with and are informed by East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) cultural backgrounds.
esea contemporary is situated in an award-winning building in the heart of Manchester, home to one of the largest East Asian populations in the UK. Since its inauguration as a community-oriented visual arts festival in 1986, esea contemporary has continuously evolved to establish itself as a dynamic and engaging space for cross-cultural exchanges in the British art scene, as well as in a global context.
esea contemporary aims to increase the visibility of contemporary art practices from the East and Southeast Asian communities and their diasporas. It is a site for forward-thinking art programmes that beyond exhibitions also include commissions, research, residencies, publishing, and a wide range of vibrant public events. esea contemporary values creativity, compassion, interconnectedness, and collectivity in implementing its mission.
Learn more at: www.eseacontemporary.org
Photo by Joe Smith.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
esea contemporary, 13 Thomas Street, Manchester, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00 to GBP 3.00
