A psycho-physical training regimen for human enhancement. Our model for the future of the human is the cephalopod - the group of animals that include octopus, cuttlefish and squid.
We train key cephalopod sensitivities and capacities
Tactile Intelligence
AKA seeing with the skin, or a deep attention to sensorium and embodied intelligence
Shapeshifting Ability
Cephalopods are shapeshifting and camoflauge experts. While our ability to change colors as humans is limited, we take a more expansive approach to shapeshift, namely:
(a) hyper-awareness of one’s hyper-local environment; and
(b) the flexibility to adapt and transform one's form and (social) position for best resiliency in the given situation
Distributed Intelligence
Cephalopod nervous systems differ radically from the human: 3/5 of its 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 intention.
“how do we know what technology we need to augment the human body, if we don’t yet know what’s possible with what we already have?”
Training a technology - one rooted in practice, development of internal abilities, and equity in access. TCE embraces the capacities residing in the biological human body and the pleasures rooted in bodily practices.
For more see my essay Transhumanist Cephalopod Evolution published in Forecast: FREEDOM
Role Model Species
In our shared transhumanist future , the 'role model species' for the future human is a cephalopod (octopus, cuttlefish, squid). '
We study cephalopod sensitivities and capacities through exercises that engage embodied practices that help us to enact cephalopod ways of being with ourselves, with each other, and in the world.
TCE was originally developed in collaboration with luciana achugar and inspired by achugar's pleasure practice. It was further evolved in collaboration with science and engineering students at MIT and the Imagine Synchro synchronized swimming team.
Transhumanist Cephapolod Evolution is a somatic, psycho-physical, interpersonal (person-to-human-or-non-human-person) and person-to-enviornment training for teams, friends, humans. I work with groups of 4-40, including collaborators that work together daily, students that study together, and a general public audience that meets for the first time.
Past Training Sessions
2023 Transdisciplinary Design MFA, New School, New York, USA
2023 Berggruen Institute Embodied Machines Gathering, Cambridge, USA
2023 Parsons School of Design, New York, USA
2023 MIT School of Architecture, Cambridge, USA
2022 Waking Life Music Festival, Crato, PT
2021 Onassis Foundation, Athens, GR
2021 Gyoki3 Art Incubator, Sopot, PL
2021 Body IQ Somatics Festival, Berlin, DE
2019 Bogota Museum of Modern Art, Bogota, CO
2019 École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, FR
2019 Carpintarias de São Lázaro, Lisbon, PT
2019 CtrlShft, Oakland, USA
2019 Practice Space, Cambridge, USA
2018 MIT List Center for the Visual Arts, Cambridge, USA
2018 Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco, USA
2018 Imagine Synchro synchronized swimming team, New York, USA
2017 MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, USA
