Space is the Case: A Conversation with SETI Artist in Residence Martin Wilner

During his time as an Artist in Residence (AIR) at the SETI Institute, visual artist, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst Martin Wilner invited prominent SETI Institute scientists to participate in his ongoing project, The Case Histories. Interested in exploring how scientists relate to the possibility of encountering an alien life form, Wilner invited researchers such as Jill Tarter, Seth Shostak, and Franck Marchis to send him daily messages and share thoughts of interest. These messages, filtered through the prism of psychoanalytical principles, were then transformed into drawings and visualized as daily elements of a calendar. More recently, Wilner has expanded his conversations into the realm of AI, an “alien” intelligence that is already in our midst. In this conversation, hosted by SETI AIR Director Bettina Forget, discover how Wilner weaves connections between the human mind, machine learning, consciousness, and our ideas about extraterrestrial life. (Recorded live 27 February 2025.)