Siobhan McDonald’s multifaceted exhibition PASSAGE explores Dublin’s deep history as a mutable landscape shaped by water, cosmology, and human intervention. Through film, sound, painting, and sculpture, the exhibition investigates how the city’s shifting ground holds memory and resilience.
Florian Neukart is Assistant Professor of Physics, Leiden University. He is widely recognized as a leading figure in high technology, innovation, and future tech. With extensive experience in academia, industry, and consulting, he has established himself as a trusted advisor and practitioner in artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
Currently serving as the Executive Board Member for Product at Terra Quantum AG, as the Director for Exponential Technologies at the Quantum Economy Institute, and on Board of Trustees of the International Foundation of Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing, Florian also holds a special advisory role at the Quantum Strategy Institute and serves on the Board of Advisors of KI Park. He has contributed significantly to shaping Germany’s approach to quantum computing as a co-author of the National Roadmap for Quantum Computing and sits on the Advisory Board of Quantum.Tech. Florian’s expertise has also been sought after on the global stage, as evidenced by his membership in the World Economic Forum’s Future Council on Quantum Computing.
Jonathan Goldenberg is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Evolutionary Biology, Lund University. He is an evolutionary biologist specializing in the dynamics of species evolution under changing environmental conditions. His research primarily investigates the function and evolution of colored integuments in animals. He integrates fieldwork, literature analysis, and museum collections with computer vision, biophysical models, spatial analyses, and phylogenetic comparative methods to examine how species respond to shifting environments at local and global scales, from past to present and into the future.
John Etnyre is currently a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
“I received my PhD from the University of Texas and then spent several years at Stanford with an NSF postdoctoral fellowship. The next stop was the University of Pennsylvania where, after four years, I became an Associate Professor and then moved to Georgia Tech.”
Enrique Gaztanaga is Professor of Astrophysics at Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth.
“I also have a civil servant (on leave) appointment as Research Professor in the Institute of Space Studies (ICE) working for the Spanish National Research Council (www.csic.es) and the IEEC in Barcelona. My background is in Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology. My expertise is in the area of theoretical models of Cosmology and the building and analysis of the largest Cosmic maps. I am currently director of the PAU Survey (pausurvey.org) and the Science Coordinator of ESA ARRAKIHS (arrakihs-mission.eu) space mission. ”
David Cornell is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Lancashire.
His research tends to be in metaphysics, but he is something of a generalist when it comes to philosophy and has taught students the full spectrum of philosophical topics, from ethics to epistemology and from logic to political theory.
We know from cognitive science and neuroscience that the brain is not a passive observer, like a camera lens. The brain actively composes what we perceive. Still we persist, in all our endeavors – from trying to cure cancer to conceiving of a unified theory – to operate from a materialist perspective. Perhaps this needs to change.
‘Perceiving Reality: The Enthalpy of Existence’ traces a decade long investigation by British artist Alexander James Hamilton into the behaviour of light, matter, and perception as thermodynamic systems. Spanning the Siberian projects ‘Oil + Water’ (2013–2016) and ‘Empirical Research & Evidence’ (2021–2023), the work unites scientific observation with aesthetic consciousness. Through analogue photography and sustainable material practice, Hamilton visualises entropy, equilibrium, and environmental change as intertwined conditions. The resulting corpus proposes that perception itself functions as empirical instrument: a form of energy exchange in which to observe is to participate in creation.
Through the lens of a stem cell clinic in the year 2135, ‘In Petri Dish We Sing’ envisions a world where embryonic stem cells (ESCs) become a raw, sustainable material that forms the very fabric of the city’s infrastructure. Inspired by MIT’s research on the Lemon Skin Chair and Yarli Allison’s exploration of the healthcare system and gender health gaps, the film envisions a society reconstructed from this regenerative substance, one that carries the traces of cellular memory.
At the heart of ‘In Petri Dish We Sing’ are three intertwined lives: the healer, inspired by Yarli’s uncle, who left his prestigious gynaecology career to return to inherited ancient healing practices that Western medicine cannot identify; a granny who, at 79 wishes to be pregnant again, made possible by stem cell echnology; and a grieving man who uses his late loved one’s stem cells to grow furniture. Their encounters unfold within the speculative infrastructure of a stem cell clinic, where care and repair could be reimagined.
As artificial intelligence grows more capable, it’s reshaping how humanity confronts belief. This essay explores how machines now pose questions once reserved for prophets and philosophers—disrupting spiritual traditions, simulating consciousness, and reinterpreting faith as a cognitive inheritance. From data-driven skepticism to the algorithmic search for meaning, AI isn’t just analyzing religion—it’s participating in the inquiry. Drawing on philosophy, neuroscience, and cultural reflection, the piece asks: when machines illuminate what was once unknowable, does divinity fade… or evolve?