Transhuman Cephalopod Evolution: develop your sensory-based knowing, hyper-awareness and collective intention
“The idea is to do collaborative research, to be in touch, in ways that enable response-ability.”
– Karen Barad [1]
Transhuman Cephalopod Evolution // TCE // is a PSYCHO-PHYSICAL training regimen for human evolution {{enhancement, extension, transformation}} in the face of rapid techno-ecological change, with the cephalopod as #role-model-organism#.
{{{ #allthewaysintobecoming }}} We are agents of our own evolution. Let us consider the models we use to organize said (r)evolution.
“Cephalopods – especially octopuses, cuttlefish, and squid – have a special importance. These animals are an independent experiment in the evolution of large and complex nervous systems – in the biological machinery of the mind. They evolved this machinery on a historical lineage distinct from our own. Where their minds differ from ours, they show us another way of being a sentient organism.”
- Peter Godfrey-Smith [2]
Transhuman {{ the physical, psychological and emotional enhancement of the human organism }} Cephalopod Evolution is a series of exercises and practices to train new sensitivities and capabilities *within the existing human biological system* {{{#loveforbodilylabors}}}. A project for internal capacity building, a quest towards multi-species understandings, an impossible and worthy pursuit.
TCE is comprised of dozens of exercises and practices that build over time. Time, attention, awareness and duration are key to this training. We begin with #drytraining and eventually submerge, in anticipation of the rising seas, to the more advanced #wettraining. Below you can find three (mostly dry) exercises for you to try at home.
(i) Tactile cognition and intelligence: attuning to a sensory-based knowing
(ii) Shapeshifter intelligence: developing hyper-awareness to the hyper-local while invigorating our flexibility and iridescent morphology of identity
(iii) Distributed Intelligence
Cephalopods break the Cartesian divide with their biology: 3/5 of their neurons are located outside the brain, and information processing occurs throughout the body. Some call the Octopus a single organism with 9 brains. From another perspective, we may understand it to be nine organisms housed within a single skin. Upon closer examination, the borders between seemingly ‘distinct’ human organisms are in fact much blurrier than we might think. How then, do we come to inhabit a state of single-organism-hood, with distributed sensory and decision-making capabilities? Beyond negotiation, beyond collaboration: toward action through collective intention.
Miriam Simun works at the intersection of ecology, technology and the body. Her practice spans multiple formats including video, performance, installation, and communal sensorial experiences.
Trained as a sociologist she spends time in communities of experts ranging from biomedical engineers to botanists; hunters to human pollinators; octopuses to breastfeeding mothers. Taking on the role of ‘artist-as-fieldworker,’ much of her process is rooted in research as lived experience, forefronting corporeal and sensorial ways of learning, listening and knowing.
Simun’s work has been presented internationally, including the New Museum, New York, Himalayas Museum, Shanghai, DeutscheBank Kunsthalle, Berlin, The Contemporary, Baltimore, Bogota Museum of Modern Art, Bogota, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, Robert Rauschenberg Gallery, New York and the Beall Center for Art + Technology, California.