Editoriale. Un’altra intelligenza

Can artificial exaptation be a generative principle, an interpretative act, or a design model? This is the question posed by this issue of «XY», which, as always, investigates themes and issues of representation in the contemporary world, going beyond the boundaries of mere operational practice in order to explore or – as in this case – also attempt to outline some possible ‘theoretical lines’, also by means of applied research considered relevant to the development of a convincing discourse. Although starting from the same Darwinian observations and making precise reference to the biological studies of Gould and Vrba, to which the call refers and which are repeatedly drawn upon by the authors of the essays, the texts presented in this issue are substantially different; and it could hardly be otherwise, because exaptation does not concern only the digital or artificial dimension: representation, after all, has always been constructed from what it finds, in the ‘places’ of both the tangible and the intangible.