How to Become an Octopus (and Sometimes Squid)

Due to the process-based nature of the Session program, this project will undergo constant modifications; the features of this page provide accruing information on the project’s developments.

The INSTITUTE FOR TRANSHUMANIST CEPHALOPOD EVOLUTION presents a series of workshops and gatherings to develop a psycho-physical practice for human enhancement, with the octopus, squid and cuttlefish as our role model species. We focus on developing three cephalopodic intelligences:

Tactile Intelligence: Learning to know through touch; to see the the skin; to learn and known ourselves, our environment, and each other through what we feel - both on the outside and inside.

Shapeshifting Intelligence: Developing a hyper-awareness of one’s hyper-local environment; and the ability to quickly, playfully and with ease re-orient one’s relationality for best resiliency in said environment.

Distributed Intelligence: Octopus nervous systems differ radically from the human: 3/5 of their neurons are in the 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? Beyond negotiation, beyond collaboration: toward shared cognition.

How to Become an Octopus (and Sometimes Squid) was formed in collaboration with - and forever indebted to - choreographer luciana achugar, and further evolved in collaboration with scientists, engineers, dancers and synchronized swimmers.

More about the INSTITUTE FOR TRANSHUMANIST CEPHALOPOD EVOLUTION

What are we going to do with all these futures?

In the face of a rapid technological and ecological change, TRANSHUMANIST CEPHALOPOD EVOLUTION proposes the cephalopod rather than the machine as the model for the future of the human. When the sea levels rise, we will be ready - onwards and under! Feeling towards our fellow species and oceanic roots, embracing the capacities residing in existing bio-availabilities and rooted in bodily labors; exploring the possibilities for mythological, embodied and indigenous knowledges for the project of innovation, we ask - how can we know what technology we need to augment the human, if we don’t yet know what’s possible with what we already have?

Positing the “model species” as role model for humanity (rather than simply an instrument exploited for science) we embrace training as a technology rooted in practice, development of internal abilities, and equity in access.