Humans still struggle to engineer complex systems. Our position is that the engineering premise is fatally flawed when it comes to complexity and that we need a new paradigm. This week explores the ideas needed to inform this paradigm shift. Existing biological interventions offer some clues regarding necessary elements for such a framework. Like neuroprosthetics and […]
Screening of Colossus: The Forbin Project (a.k.a. The Forbin Project), specially introduced by Santa Fe Institute President David Krakauer. The Forbin Project is a 1970 American science fiction thriller film about an advanced American defense system, named Colossus, becoming sentient. After being handed full control, Colossus' draconian logic expands on its original nuclear defense directives to assume total control of the world and […]
Free, live music every Friday in the Railyard Plaza all summer long! Concerts presented by AMP Concerts, sponsored by Falling Colors, and additionally supported by the InterPlanetary Festival.
As part of Emergent Engineering Week, we converse with Joerael Numina about his "Mobilize Walls" project, which seeks to out-scale and out-(sm)art Trump's proposed Mexican/American border wall. He'll also discuss his piece "Voyager," commissioned by the Santa Fe Institute for IP2020, and the various complex themes throughout the image.
The origin of life on Earth remains a hotly contested question among scientists. Maybe life began in the depths of the ocean, or with an electric spark, or in a small pond that repeatedly dried. Perhaps the answer to this question will be found through our understanding of the role that RNA played in the […]
Specially introduced screening of Ikarie XB-1 (released in the United States as Voyage to the End of the Universe), a 1963 Czechoslovak science fiction film directed by Jindřich Polák. It is based loosely on the novel The Magellanic Cloud, by Stanisław Lem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msm5BdK35us
A panel discussion on life detection investigations deployed place today, what those technologies are seeking, what information we're receiving, and what it all means. This panel is partially supported by the National Science Foundation.
Started in 2016, 72 Hours of Science is an SFI tradition that challenges postdoctoral researchers to produce an interdisciplinary publication in three days. In November of 2019, 14 SFI postdocs withdrew to an isolated research location to accomplish, in just 72 hours, a monumental task — decoding the first complex communication from an alien civilization.* […]
The theme of Motion & Energy Technology is all about how we get to wherever we're going. What fuel sources will propel us? Would InterPlanetary travel require a fundamentally new technology? How would these technologies affect the transportation roadmap here on Earth? Will the spaceship of the future actually be a space-city, complete with trees […]
Truth or Consequences is a speculative documentary about time and how we weave the past into the present and our possible future. Set in the small desert town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, the film takes place in the shadow of the world's first commercial Spaceport. Subtly set in a near future when space […]
MIT Associate Professor of Energy Studies Jessica Trancik speaks about sustainable energy technologies for this Motion and Energy Keynote Presentation.
La Jetée is a 1962 French science fiction featurette directed by Chris Marker and associated with the Left Bank artistic movement. Constructed almost entirely from still photos, it tells the story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel. This special screening will be live-scored by Rob Schwimmer (a.k.a Carlos Antenna), previous InterPlanetary performer, who […]
The theme of cities, scaling, and sustainability is focused on organizational and dynamical aspects of biological and societal organizations, from our bodies, to our businesses, to our cities. This week brings together urban planners, economists, sociologists, anthropologists, and complex systems theorists with the aim of exploring the general scaling patterns in urban infrastructure and dynamics […]
Closed meeting leading up to the InterPlanetary Festival "Architecture, Cities, and Scale" Panel, where participants will plan and design a functional Martian Outpost.
Specially introduced screening of Moebius, a 1996 Argentine science fiction film directed by Gustavo Mosquera and starring Guillermo Angelelli, Roberto Carnaghi and Annabella Levy. It is based on the classic short story A Subway Named Mobius, by Armin Joseph Deutsch. The film is set in a dark and dystopian Buenos Aires, where a 30-passenger convoy vanishes in the closed circuit of the underground system. […]
Humans are resilient, but are we resilient enough to jump the hurdles of longterm survival -- both on our planet and beyond? What can we learn about creating sustainable environments from the evolution of life on our planet, and can we apply those lessons to creating a self-sustaining system on other planets? What can we […]
Specially introduced screening of Silent Running (1972), an environmental-themed post-apocalyptic science fiction film set in a future where all plant life on Earth is becoming extinct. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p69lEMn0I8k