VLC Forum 2025: Matter of Intelligence

The Vera List Center for Art and Politics—an artist-focused research center and public forum for art, culture, and politics based at The New School—is thrilled to announce the VLC Forum 2025: Matter of Intelligence, to be held October 17 & 18, 2025, in New York City. An international, annual convening of key participants in the field of art and politics, this year’s forum is curated within the framework of the center's two-year investigation Matter of Intelligence, a transdisciplinary inquiry exploring the subject of intelligence across species, systems, and societies through art and critical study. 

The VLC Forum 2025 brings together visionary artists, curators, scholars, and technologists for an illuminating series of talks, performances, and live broadcasts reflecting on the many forms intelligence can take. Anchoring this year’s VLC Forum, the VLC Fellows—Moriah Evans, Mashinka Hakopian, Joyce Joumaa, and Kira Xonorika—offer a first public glimpse into their unfolding fellowship projects.

The VLC Forum launches on October 17 with a keynote by philosopher Matteo Pasquinelli, AI and Madness: On the Disalienation of the General Intellect, with a response by media scholar David Bering-Porter. The annual VLC Community Dinner explores the mind-gut axis through food and bold ideas. Featuring a DJ set by Lamin Fofana and divination practitioners Tania Khouri, Jia Sung, and Dannielle Tegeder, the Community Dinner invites reflection on how cultures have long explored knowledge, intuition, and prediction—embodied counterpoints to today’s AI and algorithmic logics. 

Day two leads off with collaborators Sandra Erbacher and Ruth Estévez on the fraught history and enduring impact of intelligence testing. Then the VLC Fellows assemble for four lively dialogues with artists, scholars, and curators Meredith Broussard, Catherine D'Ignazio, André Lepecki, and Tiara Roxanne. Together, they each unpack the intricacies of intelligence in all its forms, while rethinking what it means to know, sense, and imagine.

Rounding out this year’s VLC Forum, we announce the recipient and finalists of the 2025–2027 Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice, honoring artists who have taken great risks to advance social justice in profound and visionary ways.

The VLC Forum 2025 is accompanied by a newly published catalogue, featuring texts and a roundtable with the VLC Fellows, a visual score by Sandra Erbacher and Ruth Estévez, and a detailed program guide. Additionally, the VLC Forum 2025 Reader, a channel of the Matter of Intelligence Are.na, offers a curated selection of related books, essays, interviews, images, sound, and video works.

The Vera List Center Forum 2025: Matter of Intelligence is curated by Carin Kuoni and Eriola Pira in partnership with the VLC Fellows. It is convened with support from Tabor Banquer, Re’al Christian, Adrienne Umeh, and Molly Ragan. 

Programming is free and open to the public with advanced registration. Subscribe to the VLC newsletter or follow us on social media to receive up-to-date announcements.

Day One: Friday, October 17

Matteo Pasquinelli, AI and Madness: On the Disalienation of the General Intellect
6:30–8pm EDT
Kellen Auditorium, The New School
Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, 66 Fifth Ave, 1st floor, New York

Philosopher Matteo Pasquinelli’s keynote considers the notion of a collective mind—or general intellect—and the AI models that both materialize and alienate this collective intelligence, with a response by David Bering-Porter, Assistant Professor of Culture and Media, The New School.

Community Dinner: Guts and Brains
8–10pm EDT
The New School, Theresa Lang Community and Student Center
55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor, New York

This year’s VLC Community Dinner is a convivial, multisensory gathering that explores the mind-gut connection—linking thought, emotion, and the senses. With divination readings by Tania Khouri, Jia Sung, and Dannielle Tegeder, and a DJ set by Lamin Fofana.

Day Two: Saturday, October 18

(question–repeat–failure–record)
11am–12pm EDT
The New School, Starr Foundation Hall
University Center, 63 Fifth Avenue, Lower Level

(question–repeat–failure–record) is a choreographic lecture performance by Sandra Erbacher and Ruth Estévez, conceived as the first chapter in their evolving inquiry into the fraught history and enduring impact of intelligence testing. 

Conversations with the 2025–2027 VLC Fellows and Special Guests
12–5pm EDT
The New School, Starr Foundation Hall

The VLC Fellows explore intelligence in all its forms—how it is measured, experienced in the body, cultivated within communities, and shared across people, species, and technologies. Featuring Joyce Joumaa with Meredith Broussard, Moriah Evans with André Lepecki, Mashinka Hakopian with Catherine D’Ignazio, and Kira Xonorika with Tiara Roxanne.

Prize Announcement and Forum Closing Reception
5–6pm EDT
The New School, Starr Foundation Hall

Closing out the VLC Forum 2025, we announce and toast the recipient of the 2025–2027 Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice and the four Jane Lombard Fellows, in anticipation of their presentations at next year’s VLC Forum. 

About the VLC Forum 
Launched in 2018, the Vera List Center Forum is an annual convening of leading voices and practitioners in the field of art and politics and a signature program of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics. The VLC Forum is an open invitation to approach the political expansively. It is a platform for an in-depth, collective inquiry into the VLC’s biennial Focus Themes and showcases exemplary politically engaged art practices from around the world, including those of the Vera List Center Fellows, the Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice recipient, and the Jane Lombard Fellows.

About the VLC
The Vera List Center for Art and Politics is an artist-focused research center and public forum for art, culture, and politics. It was established at The New School in 1992—a time of rousing debates about freedom of speech, identity politics, and society’s investment in the arts. A leader in the field, the center is a nonprofit that catalyzes and supports politically engaged art, public scholarship, and research throughout the world. We champion the arts as expressions of the political moments from which they emerge, and consider the intersection between art and politics the space where new forms of civic engagement must be developed. Through the VLC Seminars, the Jane Lombard Prize, artist and student fellowships, exhibitions, public programs, and publications that probe some of the pressing issues of our time, we curate and support new roles for the arts and artists in advancing social justice.