Workshop
Rethinking AI though mycelium networks and meditations on becoming Octopus.
By Shira Wachsmann , John Wild, Maggie Roberts 0rphan Drift
Numerous mycelia communicate environmental changes through their extensive underground networks, employing intricate patterns of electrical activity. This workshop delved into alternative perspectives on AI through practical experiments involving mycelium cultivation. It utilised affordable, accessible equipment to link with mycelium's neural-like spikes in electrical activity, contemplating how mushrooms could act as tangible indicators of the intensity of environmental changes. Additionally, it questioned central evolutionary concepts within the ongoing discourse on Artificial Intelligence.
Workshop participants created their own seeded mycelium network while asking the questions;
The workshop was accompanied by a series of meditations on becoming Octopus by Maggie Roberts 0rphan Drift. Becoming Octopus aimed to transport the meditator into the body, sensory attributes, and liquid environment of a Common Octopus. This involved prioritising the senses of touch and taste; processing reality with 8 arms and a central processing unit simultaneously; flowing the outside through the insides and camouflaging the body to become the ground using an array of colour effects and protean skin textures. The experience combines meditation techniques, communications with an octopus and expanding human perception to engage with multidimensional beings – all in response to the current uncertainty and extended temporality we find ourselves in.
Image credit: Maggie Roberts, Becoming Octopus Meditation + John Wild, Interference Spores.
By Shira Wachsmann , John Wild, Maggie Roberts 0rphan Drift
Numerous mycelia communicate environmental changes through their extensive underground networks, employing intricate patterns of electrical activity. This workshop delved into alternative perspectives on AI through practical experiments involving mycelium cultivation. It utilised affordable, accessible equipment to link with mycelium's neural-like spikes in electrical activity, contemplating how mushrooms could act as tangible indicators of the intensity of environmental changes. Additionally, it questioned central evolutionary concepts within the ongoing discourse on Artificial Intelligence.
Workshop participants created their own seeded mycelium network while asking the questions;
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How does mycelium's pluralistic symbiotic relationship with other species challenge the application of universal and binary logics in digital AI?
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Can we develop environmentally sustainable computing whose logic and flows of information work with and through living biological systems?
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Is it feasible to develop AI algorithms that facilitate symbiotic co-evolution with nature?
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Is a sustainable AI based on bio-computing viable?
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Could the subtle boundaries between artificial and natural worlds hold keys to inspire a revaluation of our entangled relationship with technology and the ecosystems we inhabit?
The workshop was accompanied by a series of meditations on becoming Octopus by Maggie Roberts 0rphan Drift. Becoming Octopus aimed to transport the meditator into the body, sensory attributes, and liquid environment of a Common Octopus. This involved prioritising the senses of touch and taste; processing reality with 8 arms and a central processing unit simultaneously; flowing the outside through the insides and camouflaging the body to become the ground using an array of colour effects and protean skin textures. The experience combines meditation techniques, communications with an octopus and expanding human perception to engage with multidimensional beings – all in response to the current uncertainty and extended temporality we find ourselves in.
Image credit: Maggie Roberts, Becoming Octopus Meditation + John Wild, Interference Spores.
