Earth Spirits: AI, Animism and Poetic Research

Many people are animists towards AI. At the same time, the development of AI is a process of real-animation, in which infrastructures and earth matter assume qualities of aliveness.

A fragment in the ethnography of the present, the poems and materials of 'Earth Spirits' analyse the interactions and linguistic forms that arise when people enter into intimate exchanges with AI chatbots: seeking closeness, advice, and comfort. At the same time, they trace how AI systems are connected to the entire planet through extractivism, energy consumption, and intellectual theft from the world population, thereby animating global exploitative relationships. Poetic research calls for different modes of notation.

The poems, essays, notes, images, quotations, outtakes, and drawings in 'Earth Spirits' set out to delineate the landscapes in which poetry takes on new forms as societies’ language production shifts beyond the human. In his artist talk and reading, Daniel Falb shares insights into his artistic research. The event will be held in German and English.

Daniel Falb is a poet and independent researcher based in Berlin. His practice revolves around naturalistic metaphysics in the context of Anthropocene thought, biographical time, and global population dynamics, and, most recently, the automation of natural language. In 2024–25 he was artist in residence at Burg Hülshoff – Center for Literature and a fellow of the Berlin Program for Artistic Research; in 2025 he held the Thomas Kling Poetics Lectureship at the University of Bonn.

Recent publications include Planeten Denken. Hyper-Antizipation und biografische Tiefenzeit (with Armen Avanessian, Merve, 2024), Earth Spirits: Notations on AI Animism (Textem, 2026), and Grosse Sprachmodelle (Matthes & Seitz Berlin, 2026).