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| five_things [2022-02-18 16:40] – nik | five_things [2022-02-18 16:41] – nik |
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| ===Technological imaginaries=== | ====Technological imaginaries==== |
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| ((https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/NAMA_Machine_d%27Anticyth%C3%A8re_4.jpg}} | {{https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/NAMA_Machine_d%27Anticyth%C3%A8re_4.jpg}} |
| Fragment A (rear) of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism|Antikythera mechanism]]; photo: Wikimedia Commons. | Fragment A (rear) of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism|Antikythera mechanism]]; photo: Wikimedia Commons. |
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| Those answers can come from unlikely places. [[https://charlesreid1.com/wiki/Lono_Computing|LONO systems]] (low or no power), Ethereum’s [[https://ethereum.org/en/what-is-ethereum/|World Computer]], and the ’communal computer’ of [[https://dynamicland.org/|Dynamicland]] raise as many questions as answers. The ambitions of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu|Xanadu]] or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn|Cybersyn]] hum in the background. Simulations with CESM ([[ https://www.cesm.ucar.edu/|Community Earth System Model]]) continue on a planetary scale, while researchers in “Unconventional Computing” find ways to compute with liquids, chemical reactions, slime moulds, and algae balls. | Those answers can come from unlikely places. [[https://charlesreid1.com/wiki/Lono_Computing|LONO systems]] (low or no power), Ethereum’s [[https://ethereum.org/en/what-is-ethereum/|World Computer]], and the ’communal computer’ of [[https://dynamicland.org/|Dynamicland]] raise as many questions as answers. The ambitions of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu|Xanadu]] or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn|Cybersyn]] hum in the background. Simulations with CESM ([[ https://www.cesm.ucar.edu/|Community Earth System Model]]) continue on a planetary scale, while researchers in “Unconventional Computing” find ways to compute with liquids, chemical reactions, slime moulds, and algae balls. |
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| ===Multispecies metaphors=== | ====Multispecies metaphors==== |
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| What if we were to broaden the spectrum of metaphors we use for human behaviour? We share common ancestors with cephalopods, fungi and micro-organisms. We could develop non-verbal communication inspired by octopuses, who change the colour, shape and texture of their skin. Their distributed nervous system could become a metaphor for the human exo-nervous system, as it extends through networks of connected devices. We could broaden gender discussions with the 36,000 sexes of fungi, or hermaphroditic snails, or fish that can change sex. Think of the Endoliths — organisms that live inside rocks, crevices of animal shells, or the pores between grains of minerals, filling ever more extreme niches. They can live many kilometres beneath the Earth’s surface, surviving without water, feeding on iron, sulphur and other inorganic material. Could the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans|Deinococcus radiodurans]] become an archetypal hero of our times? “The world’s toughest bacterium”, able to survive radiation, cold, dehydration, vacuum and acid. [[https://fo.am/publications/terrafictions/|Imagine our bodies with such bacteria living on our skin]]. | What if we were to broaden the spectrum of metaphors we use for human behaviour? We share common ancestors with cephalopods, fungi and micro-organisms. We could develop non-verbal communication inspired by octopuses, who change the colour, shape and texture of their skin. Their distributed nervous system could become a metaphor for the human exo-nervous system, as it extends through networks of connected devices. We could broaden gender discussions with the 36,000 sexes of fungi, or hermaphroditic snails, or fish that can change sex. Think of the Endoliths — organisms that live inside rocks, crevices of animal shells, or the pores between grains of minerals, filling ever more extreme niches. They can live many kilometres beneath the Earth’s surface, surviving without water, feeding on iron, sulphur and other inorganic material. Could the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans|Deinococcus radiodurans]] become an archetypal hero of our times? “The world’s toughest bacterium”, able to survive radiation, cold, dehydration, vacuum and acid. [[https://fo.am/publications/terrafictions/|Imagine our bodies with such bacteria living on our skin]]. |
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