Date:
Saturdays, May 10, May 24, and June 14, 2-4pm
This experience is open to anyone curious about cephalopods, new ways of sensing, and expanding the definition of self. No prior experience with cephalopod mimicry required—just an open mind and a willingness to experiment and play.
Spaces are limited. Registration is highly suggested. Join us in redefining the next stage of evolution!
Guided by the Institute for Transhumanist Cephalopod Evolution founder Miriam Simun, attendees will foster a new kind of listening and connection to the self, the environment, and the other beings in our midst. The 2-hour workshop unlocks enhanced bodily awareness, decentralized cognition, and shapeshifting capabilities.
Workshop topics include:
Tactile & Embodied Cognition: Octopus suckers are made from some of the softest biological materials we know of, which allows them to get as close as possible to what they touch. They are also chemo-receptors - they sense chemicals - as we do, with our sense of nose and taste. One experiment by MJ Wells found that the suckers on an octopus are 100 times more sensitive than the human tongue. Imagine, your entire skin-body is a tongue - but 100 times more sensitive. We will learn to see with our skin, as well as attend to the wave of sensations inside our bodies - developing both tactile perception and interoception.
Shapeshifting Capacities: Cephalopods are masters of camouflage, altering their form, texture, and movement style to trick predators, prey, competitors, and also to communicate with each other. While human ability to change colors is limited, we learn to develop hyper-local awareness of our hyper-local environment - and then the ability and fluidity to quickly re-orient, adapt, shape-shift the self for best resiliency in said environment and situation.
Distributed Intelligence: Octopuses possess a radically decentralized nervous system, with the majority of their neurons residing in their arms. Some say the octopus is a single organism with 9 brains. From another perspective, we can say it is nine organisms housed within a single skin. How can multiple humans come to inhabit a single organism with distributed sensory and decision-making capabilities? How is cognition located in the network that spans bodies and environments? Beyond negotiation, beyond collaboration: toward shared cognition.
The workshop is informed by insights from cephalopod biologists, neuroscientists, engineers, freedivers, choreographers, and synchronized swimmers, creating a rigorous yet deeply embodied learning experience. Participants engage in a series of exercises that integrate movement, sensory exploration, and relational experimentation, fostering a profound connection between the human and more-than-human world.
Access Note: Workshops will last two hours. We will work alone, in partners, and as a group. Please wear clothes you feel comfortable moving in, be prepared to take off your shoes and spend time on the floor. There will be an invitation to come into touch with yourself, your environment, and the others around you.
For those with physical limitations working in a chair is also possible. For specific disabilities please email info@recessart.org ahed of time and we will do our best to accommodate.