Thinking Machines

Every philosopher can be a good mechanic

Ramon Llull 

Why an exhibition like the one that the CCCB organized two years ago about the well-known medieval philosopher has traveled to two of the most emblematic places dedicated to the digital humanities and computational thinking? Why exactly to two institutions that work on projects that encompass technology, engineering and art?

The CCCB presented an exhibition that emphasized the knowledge method invented by Ramon Llull, the ars combinatoria, a complex mechanism of geometric figures and symbols that combine letters and concepts, and that Llull announced as the origin of a new knowledge with universal pretensions. In "Thinking Machines" the realms of poetry, literature and art meet with computational and digital sciences. The drivers that brings this polymath, thinker, and philosopher to the EPFL, demonstrate the extent to which Ramon Llull's investigations and prolific production are of profound relevance for our contemporaneity.

At the exhibition, this impact of Ramon Llull's thought is represented through books, medieval manuscripts, calculation artifacts, music and contemporary installations, as well as computer programs by artists and collectives such as Ralf Baecker, Manuel Barbadillo, Berlin Society for Nontrivial Pursuits (S4NTP), Michael Bielicky, John Cage, Juan Eduardo Cirlot, Salvador Dalí, Márton Fernezelyi, Philipp Goldbach, Matthias Gommel, Jean-Jacques Grandville, Sabine Groschup, Philipp Matthäus Hahn, Sarah Kenderdine, Anselm Kiefer, Yunchul Kim, Athanasius Kircher, Werner Künzel, Pe Lang, Nikolaus Joachim Lehmann, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Daniel Libeskind, David Link, Bernd Lintermann, Ramon Llull, Josep Maria Mestres Quadreny, Stephan Michelspacher, Manfred Mohr, Thomas Le Myésier, Valère Novarina, José Pal Latorre, Perejaume, Miklós Peternák, Giovanni Battista della Porta, Francesc Pujols, Raymond Queneau, Kamila B. Richter, Arnold Schönberg, Jeffrey Shaw, Adam Slowik, Josep Soler, Josep Maria Subirachs, Zoltán Szegedy-Maszák, Antoni Tàpies, Edwin Thumboo, Philipp Tögel, Tatjana Joëlle van Vark, Peter Weibel and José María Yturralde.