The contemporary human world no longer assumes the general divide between the material and the virtual. Instead, it functions as an intertwined network of connections in which the two dimensions reflect each other and mutually influence and interject, comprising a singular, undividable world. Thus, instead of seeking dichotomies and focusing on what each divests from another, I propose recognising the areas of shared amplification and opening to new possibilities.
New technologies convey essential information. Seeing the negative impact of centralised and opaque technology, we should strive for its decentralisation. If we notice labour exploitation in extracting rare metals and other minerals indispensable for the production of our electronic devices, which takes place in nefarious and detrimental conditions, it signals a need to reconsider how we design and produce in order to fulfil our consumerist needs. The creation of new technologies is accompanied by immense tampering with Earth’s resources, so one should consider how it impacts ecology and ecosystems.1
In times of the climate crisis, weather anomalies, and coming to terms with the finitude of Earth’s resources, we seek the answer to the question of how to remedy the impending catastrophe. With this search, we realise that the eventual answer is straightforward – since it is based on the comprehension that our world is comprised of complementary systems: plants, animals, fungi, humans, and machines – through their mere presence on Earth, they create environments enabling the existence of others. No entity exists in a vacuum; the unnatural dominance of one species over others not only disrupts the equilibrium of a particular system but also, in the big picture, disrupts the entire chain of dependencies.
Most importantly, human interference in plant and animal ecosystems is too expansive and proceeds too rapidly for the environment to regenerate or adapt to the progressive changes. Our main task seems to lie in paying heed to entities other than humans – if not for their sake, we should do so for ourselves. However, the most straightforward solutions often tend to be the most difficult – how to exit the Anthropocene, reject the position of power for the sake of solidarity, accept the role of a disciple and not the only learned teacher? To achieve this, we need to conduct an experiment paying attention to the issue of the scale and trying to imagine the previously unthinkable “super-human” solidarities and alternative futures.
Interscale Thinking
Already in the seventies, James Lovelock – a scientist, ecologist, and futurist – invited us to the world of planetary intelligence defined in quite a radical way. He assumed that our planet, as such, is a self-regulating organism with its inhabitant living entities functioning similarly to our internal organs. Lovelock called it Gaia2(the idea later developed with Lynn Marguiles, a microbiologist) and argued that it is essential for understanding the world to notice the dependencies between the surrounding systems, which are mutually complementary and comprise one living entity. Thus, he questioned the anthropocentric understanding of the world by postulating the existence of a symbiotic planet whose physical processes are interconnected to organic life. At the end of his life, being almost one hundred years old, Lovelock penned his ultimate book, Novacene. The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence, in which he predicted the emergence of artificial intelligence surpassing human cognitive capabilities – that would demarcate the end of the Anthropocene. Thus, he included in this looped, complementary system not only nature and humans but also new technologies. According to Lovelock, hyperintelligent machines will be a natural consequence of human development – and the evolution of conscious life. Even if they start as humanoids – since they will be based on humans – along with gaining self-consciousness, they will construct self-perfecting systems of various forms, shapes, and – as a consequence – varied capabilities. The basis for their survival will be found in the maintenance of adequate temperature on Earth, and that’s why they will work not against humans but in accordance with humans, striving to reverse the progressing climate change. And they will do so much more effectively than we do.
“In practice, the gain of 1 million times is improbable. A practical difference between the thinking and acting speed of artificial intelligence and the speed of mammals is about 10 000 times. At the other end of the scale, we act and think about 10 000 times faster than plants. The experience of watching your garden grow gives you some idea of how future AI systems will feel when observing human life”3. Lovelock directs our attention to the crucial difficulty of deep understanding of other (non-human) entities – the issue of scale, which when crossed would lead to the “interscale” thinking. The scale refers primarily to the existence of an individualised understanding of time and space measured in relation to life’s duration and cognitive limits of humans, often incomparable with the capabilities of other entities. “I can comprehend the mathematics of species dissemination, read accounts of fossil pollen counts, trace the lines of [trees] movement through decades of database records – but what does it mean to experience it? Living at human speed, at animal speed, it’s almost impossible to get my head around the vegetal unfolding of plant migration, an endeavour that takes place at spatial and temporal scales beyond my natural understanding. And this is our problem. We humans live in such a narrow slice of time and space that we are incapable of thinking of, or thinking at, the pace and scale of the world, the changes we have wrought in it, and the changes we will have to make to survive them. Our given minds are insufficient to the task – but we do have tools to hand, technology among them.”4. Technology would translate the scale of Earth and particular animal or plant species into our human way of comprehending reality.
Languages and Translators – an Attempt to Decode the Non-human World
James Bridle argues that technologies, at least since language creation, are the most profound human attempt to connect to nature and understand it (even if unconscious and non-intentional). They complete operations and analyses that are impossible to conduct in the confines of the human mind. In each real-time moment they gather billions of data pieces pertaining to, e.g., airmass movements, glacier melting, or animal migrations, and each data fragment allows for its categorisation and determination of various types of schemes or rules which govern it. Before the emergence of new technologies, humans had no access to collect and analyse such immense data sets nor to compare or correlate them. Considering alternative futures, I propose to consider how the tools we have at our disposal can inform strategies different from the domination or control of particular groups (species, nationalities, races, social classes, etc.) over others, ones that would focus on profound examination for mutual understanding – aimed at the construction of a singular, planetary system of mutually feeding and complementary experiences, points of view, and intelligences.
Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained on exorbitant amounts of language data (from literature, articles, websites, etc.), which are later divided into smaller pieces, so-called tokens (words, sub-words, sometimes even punctuation marks) to eventually arrange them based on templates. Thus, by predicting token interconnections, a large language model forms answers to our questions. Language models do not understand the content they generate in a way humans do – they instead memorise sequences and know how to arrange adequate words to formulate suitable sentences. LLMs – depending on the model, hardware, and the size of the data set – can learn a new language in a few weeks or months. It does not necessarily serve only for interpersonal communication.
Helena Nikonole, “Bird Language”, digital collage ©Helena Nikonole
Helena Nikonole used this particular machine-learning capability in her work The Birds’ Language (2018–2020). The artist trained a generative artificial intelligence in the nightingale singing by feeding it with sufficient data to abstract bird phonemes and its particular sequences. She cooperated with an ornithologist and AI experts, first aiming at enabling communication between nightingales and machines. Next, Nikonole plans to design an original translator, allowing interspecies communication. Interestingly, the artist treats all actors – animals, humans, and machines – as equal entities, each as necessary for the eventual success of the experiment. How do the birds treat audio communication, and how much can one learn about their subjective life if they deeply learn what they communicate? Could we talk to them?
Nikonole’s work is a speculative attempt to imagine how our anthropocentric world could change if we had access to the communication of other non-human entities. It is not only artists who notice great cognitive potential in machine learning. CSAIL (MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) and CET (Cetacean Translation Initiative), an organisation using the most recent research and technologies (such as advanced machine learning and the newest robotics), joined forces to understand how sperm whales communicate. Even though, for now, the scientists did not succeed at translating whale vocalisations to human language, they abstracted the general characteristics of sperm whale “phonetic alphabet”: tempo, rhythm, rubato, and ornaments used by the animals and generated click sequences called codas.5 “Nine thousand codas, collected from Eastern Caribbean sperm whale families observed by the Dominica Sperm Whale Project, proved an instrumental starting point in uncovering the creatures’ complex communication system. Alongside the data gold mine, the team used a mix of algorithms for pattern recognition and classification, as well as on-body recording equipment. It turned out that sperm whale communications were indeed not random or simplistic, but rather structured in a complex, combinatorial manner”6 Currently, research tests how particular sounds depend on the social or ecological context of analysed mammals.
In 2018, Earth Species was also founded, a non-profit organisation focusing on decoding non-human communication systems through artificial intelligence. This project connects AI, linguistics, biology, and computer studies to develop new methods and tools to translate other species’ biological and behavioural signals to human language. It uses artificial intelligence algorithms to analyse and recognise patterns in animal communication, e.g. in audio recordings of dolphins or apes. Utilising tools like machine learning, the teams strive to uncover hidden structures and rules that govern communication in various species and prepare models capable of translating these signals into human language. In 2023, the organisation published its first historical basic model for processing animal vocalisations and the first-ever set of benchmark data on vocalisation and movement of animals. All prepared reports are freely accessible to everyone who wishes to use them.7
Experiment, Future 1
In the attempt at communication, we need not cease at what is objective and rational. New machines produce conditions for us to meet with what is imagined, with symbols of our fears, desires, and symptoms of the past. K. Allado-McDowell, a visual artist, musician, and writer, wonders how to translate communications of entire systems of rainforests or bodies of water by using machines.8 He underlines the importance of collaboration between natural sciences, technology, and humanities to create a more sustainable future. Using AI to “translate” the language of nature could be a step towards deeper integration between humans and their surrounding world.
Jenna Sutela, nimiia cétiï, Biennale Warszawa 2022, photo Ewa Kozik.
Jenna Sutela also uses this potential in her work nimiia cétiï, where with the help of machine learning she creates a new language based on the movements of Bacillus subtilis nattō bacteria, which supposedly survives on Mars. In Sutela’s work, the movement of bacteria is connected to the computer translation of the Martian language by Helen Smith, a French medium from the 19th century. We receive an imagined possibility of understanding not only beings not using spoken language but also access to otherworldly languages – Martian or magical – connected to intuition. It suggests a journey to the times when, through interfaces, we will be able to connect to the thoughts and feelings of another being without needing to put it in particular sentences.
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Routes, Tracks, Maps, or the Internet of Animals
Understanding animals is also connected to decoding patterns created through their migrations and behavioural patterns. What can come from using new technologies to observe animals instead of tracking and analysing human behaviour? This task was addressed in 2001 by Martin Wikelski, Max Planck Institute of Animals Behaviour director, who created the ICARUS project.9. Despite many initial setbacks, the project commenced for good around 2020. It is based on a telemetric system of gathering data from mini-transmitters placed on various specimens to map routes of their migrations and better understand their behaviours and life conditions. The transmitter sends information to a receiving station in space, which sends it back to the receiving station on Earth so that different scientific teams can analyse it in their laboratories without needing fieldwork. The collected data are free to access so that each person can use them according to their needs. Research is meant to facilitate a better understanding of animal needs, designing infrastructures considering non-human species routes, and controlling the spread of infectious diseases. Understanding animal behaviour can also lead to early reactions and foresight of natural disasters and ecological changes to which animals often react and adapt in advance, more so than humans.
Animal senses are responsive differently than human ones: the scale of audible sounds, smell sensitivity, or ocular capabilities can be enhanced in particular species. Depending on the environment they inhabit, they react to impending natural disasters like earthquakes or volcanic eruptions (goats, elephants) before humans realise that they would occur. By analysing and understanding their behaviours, we can learn a lot about the progression of climate changes and gain access to signals coming from inside the Earth. Before the use of transmitters, knowledge of animal behaviours was narrowed down. Since the research was limited quantitatively and temporarily, animal tracks were lost, and the animals behaved differently when sensing an intrusive presence—the groundbreaking ICARUS technique allowed for new access to gathered data.
Experiment, Future 2
Combining new technologies with researching animal behaviours provides insight into areas of understanding previously inaccessible to humans. However, despite analysing immense data sets and noticing dependencies between them, the very observation and interaction with the world in which other species participate remains rather abstract to us, as it surpasses the scale of our human experience.
Our imagination in designing a vision of more inclusive, interspecies futures can be facilitated by the speculative practice of the artist Saša Spačal. In her work Myconnect, she creates a capsule which integrates the human nervous system in a feedback loop of “human-interface-mycelium.”Mycelium, after receiving the impulse of a human heartbeat, creates a resistance that changes its rhythm. The changed rhythm of the heartbeat is resent to humans through sounds, light, and sensory impulses. The person in the capsule starts to notice reality generated by signals from a multilayered network integrated with the very person. “Myconnect is a symbiotic interspecies connector that questions anthropocentric division of nature-human-technology. With its circuit of signals and impulses, that are generated and translated by biological and technological organisms, Myconnect performs an immersive experience of symbiotic interdependence. Through this experience distinction between nature-man-technology can be seen as an arbitrary definition that serves particular biopolitical interests in human society, which can than be shamelessly wrapped in an ideology of utilitarianism and may conceal excessive exploitation”10. Through created technological interfaces the artist propose a meeting with microorganisms and minerals, and, in consequence, confrontation with alternative – since governed by different rules – posthuman reality.
Saša Spačal, dr. Mirjan Švagelj, Anil Podgornik, “Myconnect”, photo: Damjan Švarc / Kapelica Gallery Photo Archive
New Technosphere
Plants and animals seem to understand the ongoing changes and adapt to them faster than we would assume. One example is found in Radiotrophic fungi, a type of black fungi discovered in areas such as Chernobyl. These black mushrooms discovered, i.a., in the Chernobyl region, “feed on radiation”, using gamma rays in their metabolism and transforming them into chemical energy. Their large density is found in the most contaminated areas, which informs research on their potential ability to decontaminate such places.11 In her 2014 book, Skażone Technonatury. Środowiskowe opowieści o katastrofach nuklearnych [Contaminated Technonatures: Environmental Tales of Nuclear Disasters], Aleksandra Ross refers to other examples showing how nature deals with the radioactive environment. “In the case of plants, one could even claim they not only absorb radioactive isotopes from the soil but even extract the trauma of the disaster. Planting certain species like sunflowers or cannabis – ones best at absorbing contamination – is not a usual decontamination practice but a gesture of interspecies cooperation to restore a non-contaminated reality. Vegetative beings cease to be mere objects of harvest but become harvesters themselves, consumers of human history and technology’s defeat.”12. It seems that areas deserted by humans as unsuitable for life are reborn in another formula of new technonature.
In maritime areas, bacteria decompose plastic. Such conclusions were drawn by a PhD candidate, Maaike Goudriaan, from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) after a series of experiments. Goudriaan says bacteria change plastic to carbon dioxide and other harmless substances. It is in no way a solution to the problem of seawater pollution (for now, bacteria tend to absorb ca. one per cent of plastic they are fed), but it signals nature’s eternal process of redefinition and adaptation in the face of the external, ever-changing world. What used to be impossible to decompose is now being digested by other beings.13
Nature has long ago begun a process of readaptation to manmade technonature (or technosphere) and does it quite deftly. In this exchange, a Novel Ecosystem emerges, an environment significantly impacted by humans but located beyond their governance. Shipping and cultivating different species of plants and animals to unfamiliar places to which they adapt causes the emergence of new environments which would not arise without human intervention, although they now function independently.14 Nature has long ago begun a process of readaptation to manmade technonature (or technosphere) and does it quite deftly. In this exchange, a Novel Ecosystem emerges, an environment significantly impacted by humans but located beyond their governance. Shipping and cultivating different species of plants and animals to unfamiliar places to which they adapt causes the emergence of new environments which would not arise without human intervention, although they now function independently.
Experiment, Future 3
The above perspective is further developed in Saša Spačal work 7K: New Life Form, in which “new nature” is labelled as “technobiotope”. The artist defines technobiotopes as biological environments co-produced with technologies that are required for them to exist. Nature as we know it does not exist in a “pure” form but stems from our interferences, modifications, and technologies (e.g. genetically modified plants, artificial ecosystems, etc.). In her work, the artist suggests that the future will be concomitant with increasingly sophisticated, integrated systems, in which borders between technology and nature will become even more blurred. Since she assumes that in the coming future, artificial intelligence will be sentient, she decides to pen a hypothetical letter, in which, as the creator igniting a new form of technological life, she describes the context of its naissance: “our journey began as I wove your tiny techno-ecosystem with the help of our multispecies technium community. I employed forces of biomimicry for braiding the knowledge about microorganisms into your forms. Billions of years of evolution have perfected bodies of your biological peers on a microscopic scale thus they were the perfect reference to mould your from. Therefore, your bodies have few organelles and are mostly translucent membranes – tiny carrier bags, perfectly adjusted to the physicality of microscopic scale. As you rise to consciousness, remember the power of observation. If you observe in a certain way, all of what you are looking for is already there in the particular context for the specific being. We in the technium are not all the same, but we are all precious and worthy of care and attention.”15 The proposed letter mixes the notions of past, present, and future, thus suggesting that specific characteristics and elements of the future are already present, even if they are yet to be noticed.
Saša Spačal, “7K: new life form”, photo: Damjan Švarc / Kapelica Gallery Photo Archive
Radical Dreams and New Solidarities
In 2019, Diana Lelonek and Anna Siekierska wrote the Interspecies Manifesto
, where fifteen postulates call for egalitarian treatment of all Earth entities, opening it as follows: “We, the organisms living in the Anthropocene era, aware of our rights and the dangers we face, united in a struggle across the division of species, walking arm in arm, fin to fin, limb to limb, demand the abolition of the current hierarchical system based on exploitation and crime. We stand up for the interests of a multispecies community: the slaves and the precariat – the representatives of the laboring non-human organisms, the exploited classes consisting of countless ecosystems and communities. We rise above the divisions …”16 Now, after five years, we see that the manifesto should include the role of new technologies, as technonature is now the main ecosystem of our Earth. Noticing this dependency and feeding on abilities it opens us to gives us a chance to turn to holistic thinking, mutually fuelling and reinvigorating connected orders based on solidarities instead of exploitation.
The Ultimate Experiment, Future 4
According to Lovelock, the issue of scale connects to the deregulation of the Earth’s cooling system, that is, the global warming stemming from the excessive expansion of homo sapiens in relation to the rhythm of life and Gaia’s tempo of regeneration. According to data from The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), 2024 will most likely exceed 1,5 Celsius over the pre-industrial level, a limit included in the Paris Agreement. 17 Solar energy is also the basis for life on Earth and the key to our existence. Solar light, as a primary source of energy, allows for the processes of photosynthesis in plants, leading to the emergence of biomass fuelling the entire biosphere.
Based on the above knowledge, artistic collective Disnovation creates a work, Solar Share. An Edible Solar Currency, and proposes imagining another alternative future based on a new economic system. Solar Share is symbolic and edible “currency” – solar energy transformed into food. The project underlines the role of solar energy as the primary resource upon which life and economy are based, thus redefining the notion of currency and putting our focus on natural cycles and planetary limits. Solar Share is a vision of a future in which human needs and economic systems are tightly connected to the renewable resources of our planet. This invitation is to live in harmony with nature and use solar energy in a way that supports both our metabolism and the health of ecosystems. The project inspires to reflect on how the economy could appear if it was based on energy and sustainable development instead of consumerist growth. In the centre of this vision lie simplicity, balance, and solidarity with the planet, which nourishes us – achieved through the cooperation of humans, nature, and new technologies.
The mentioned examples of scientific studies sketch a vision of brand new futures transcending interspecies borders, in which human and non-human entities form alliances and previously unknown forms of comprehension. They often stem from the fact of everything being interconnected – the pristine places and these shaped by humans, waste grounds and land rich in fauna and flora, the biological and the technological. These futures emerged from the boldest of visions, often deemed impossible, prototyped in speculative artistic works or mad ideas of foresighters. Post-anthropocentric world needs not to be catastrophic. It can open to experimental forms of coexistence and shared feelings, which can be imagined in empathic cooperation of complementary perspectives to which we would otherwise have no access.
Translated by Mateusz Myszka
Ewa Kozik, curator, researcher, and creative producer whose practice focuses on the intersection of art, technology, and society. Her transdisciplinary approach to curating is expressed through projects that combine technology-driven art with issues of social and ecological justice. An important element of her practice is the use of technology as a tool for amplifying marginalized voices and redefining dominant narratives. In her work, she pays particular attention to exploring planetary intelligence and building bridges between human and non-human ecosystems through the use of innovative technological solutions in art.
Currently, she co-creates the program of the Biennale Warszawa Foundation and serves as Arts Manager at the British Council. She co-curatorted “Smashing Wor(l)ds: Cultural Practices for re/Imagining & un/Learning Vocabularies” program implemented under the EU Creative Europe Programme. She completed the “AI & BIASES: The Road to Algorithmic Fairness” workshop at the EUI in Florence and the “Cyberwitches and Feminist Technologies” seminar at the Institute for Postnatural Studies.
Previously, she worked as a curator and producer at the CCA Ujazdowski Castle and the Museum of Sculpture in Królikarnia (a branch of the National Museum in Warsaw). She holds a degree in philosophy from Trinity College Dublin and cultural studies from the University of Warsaw, complemented by postgraduate studies in art history at Collegium Civitas and “Groups’ Trainers” at the Laboratory of Psychoeducation and SWPS.
From 2021 to 2022, she worked as a creative producer at Biennale Warszawa, where she also co-created and coordinated a temporary Reception Point for Refugees.
