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FE5.3 - Cosmopoetics
Episode 323rd August 2023 • Future Ecologies • Future Ecologies
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How do our dreams shape our reality? Tonight, with the help of scientists, artists, philosophers, and historians, we're sprinkling a little stardust on our understanding of the more-than-human — from fish, to demons and gods.

This episode features the words and voices of Lucia Pietroiusti, Filipa Ramos, Alex Jordan, Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe, Rain Wu, Nahum Mantra, Onome Ekeh, Federico Campagna, Yussef Agbo-Ola, and Hatis Noit, recorded at The Shape of a Circle in the Dream of a Fish — a recurrent festival exploring ideas of consciousness, language and the mind across non-human species and beings, initiated in 2018 by the Serpentine Galleries and held in 2022 in partnership with the Galeria Municipal do Porto.

With music by Yussef Agbo-Ola, Hatis Noit, Thumbug, and Any-Angled Light.

Big thanks to Adam's Electric Sheep Radio co-hosts, Ryder Thomas White & Samantha Ruth, to Kostas Stasinopoulos, and to Arda Studios.

— — —

Love and strength to everyone affected by wildfires, floods, hurricanes, or other disasters right now. We're feeling... not great about planetary stability, and we'd bet you're in the same boat.

This episode doesn't directly address the climate breakdown, but we hope it can at least be a reprieve — or even offer some ways to reframe a shared nightmare.

Our next episode (on fire) is in the works. For now, we're wishing you safety, preparedness, and many moments of joy in all the life around you. Get to know your neighbours, and take care of each other. Maybe have a chat about holding climate criminals accountable.

— — —

Our supporters on Patreon get early episode releases, a lovely discord server, and other bonus content, including some of the unabridged presentations that went into this episode.

Join our community at https://www.patreon.com/futureecologies

— — —

VANCOUVER: Spiders Song will return to Lobe Studio on Thursday, September 14th!

Join us for this exploration of the music of evolution, presented in 4DSOUND spatial audio.

2 showtimes: 6:30pm and 8:30pm, both including a Q&A with Mendel.

Tickets available on a sliding scale: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/lobe-artist-residency-series-spiders-song-by-future-ecologies-tickets-695016291437

Get yours soon! Capacity is limited and both of the last shows sold out.

Transcripts

Introduction Voiceover:

You are listening to Season Five of

Introduction Voiceover:

Future Ecologies.

Mendel Skulski:

Alright... check check check.

Adam Huggins:

Looks good.

Mendel Skulski:

Good. Would you... would you mind dimming

Mendel Skulski:

the lights?

Adam Huggins:

Oh, you want it even darker in here?

Mendel Skulski:

Yeah.

Adam Huggins:

Let me see what I can do.

Adam Huggins:

How's that?

Mendel Skulski:

Perfect. What's in this tea by the way?

Adam Huggins:

It's a blend of different plants. But it's

Adam Huggins:

mostly sweet gale, which is a plant that grows in bogs.

Mendel Skulski:

It's really relaxing.

Adam Huggins:

Yeah, it's one of my favorites. And people do say

Adam Huggins:

that it is helpful in inducing lucid dreaming.

Mendel Skulski:

Lucid dreaming... to know you're

Mendel Skulski:

dreaming while it's happening. It's been a while since I had

Mendel Skulski:

one of those.

Adam Huggins:

Yeah, I can't even remember the last time I lucid

Adam Huggins:

dreamed. Maybe tonight is the night.

Mendel Skulski:

Maybe!

Adam Huggins:

Okay, so now that we've kind of set the mood here.

Adam Huggins:

I wanted to tell you that way back, before we started this

Adam Huggins:

podcast, and before I even knew what a podcast was, I had a

Adam Huggins:

college radio show for a couple of years.

Mendel Skulski:

Did you now?

Adam Huggins:

I did! With a couple of friends of mine. We

Adam Huggins:

were young. And we had an 11pm time slot that nobody cared

Adam Huggins:

about. And we had the keys to the station CD library, which

Adam Huggins:

had an excellent vinyl collection.

Mendel Skulski:

Knowing you, that sounds dangerous.

Adam Huggins:

Yeah.

Mendel Skulski:

So I'm guessing you had like two turntables and

Mendel Skulski:

a microphone.

Adam Huggins:

That was actually the exact setup. And the reason

Adam Huggins:

that I bring it up right now is that our college radio show was

Adam Huggins:

all about dreams.

Baby Radio DJ Adam:

Welcome back, you're listening to see

Baby Radio DJ Adam:

JSF 90.1 FM 93.9 cable FM in Burnaby. And this is Electric

Baby Radio DJ Adam:

Sheep radio.

DJ Ryder:

We'd like you to send us your dreams.

Baby Radio DJ Adam:

Yeah, indeed to electricsheepradio@gmail.com

Baby Radio DJ Adam:

If you feel like having your dreams aired on the radio,

Baby Radio DJ Adam:

because we just love to hear dreams as you might have

Baby Radio DJ Adam:

noticed.

DJ Samantha:

We also prefer if you record them yourself.

DJ Ryder:

And so I guess until we see you next time.

Baby Radio DJ Adam:

Goodnight.

DJ Ryder:

Sweet dreams.

Mendel Skulski:

Oh my god, your little baby radio voice. Little

Mendel Skulski:

late night DJ Adam. But other than that, nothing's really

Mendel Skulski:

changed, huh?

Adam Huggins:

Apparently not. No, I still really love to hear

Adam Huggins:

dreams. And that's what we're going to do now. Except that

Adam Huggins:

tonight, our program is called Future Ecologies.

Mendel Skulski:

Well, to be precise. Tonight, it's the Shape

Mendel Skulski:

of a Circle in the Dream of a Fish. A recurrent festival

Mendel Skulski:

that's explored the idea of consciousness, language and the

Mendel Skulski:

mind across non human species and beings. Initiated by the

Mendel Skulski:

Serpentine galleries in London since 2018, recorded on stage in

Mendel Skulski:

November 2022 at the Galleria do Biodiversidade in Porto,

Mendel Skulski:

Portugal, and then reduced and remixed by Future Ecologies.

Adam Huggins:

Tonight, with the help of artists, scientists,

Adam Huggins:

philosophers and historians, were sprinkling a little bit of

Adam Huggins:

stardust on our understanding of dreams, reality, and non human

Adam Huggins:

beings — from fish, to demons, and Gods

Mendel Skulski:

Kicking things off, festival curators, Lucia

Mendel Skulski:

Pietroiusti, and Filipa Ramos.

Lucia Pietroiusti:

And I have the sort of impossible task of

Lucia Pietroiusti:

telling you about dreams. We experience dreams as a

Lucia Pietroiusti:

transition state between realms of the physical and the

Lucia Pietroiusti:

spiritual. And so dreams become a kind of translation space.

Filipa Ramos:

But we refer to dreams when we speak about hope,

Filipa Ramos:

when we speak about repair. When we give symbolic interpretations

Filipa Ramos:

of dreams, we hold the world in place, in a sense. We shape a

Filipa Ramos:

world, its symbols, and its myths. We shape our sense of

Filipa Ramos:

belonging to that world.

Lucia Pietroiusti:

And through the notion of the dream in this

Lucia Pietroiusti:

event, we hope to -

Filipa Ramos:

somehow continue in our project to move away from

Filipa Ramos:

a human-centric conception of this world. So what might it

Filipa Ramos:

look like if we tried to de-anthropocenter the notion of

Filipa Ramos:

a dream? Well, in the first instance, it might be that in a

Filipa Ramos:

multi-species complex planet, non-human dreams might not be at

Filipa Ramos:

all like what we expect of human ones, because they'd be

Filipa Ramos:

processes belonging to completely different ways of

Filipa Ramos:

being in the world.

Lucia Pietroiusti:

So we've asked ourselves, and we'll ask

Lucia Pietroiusti:

ourselves all sorts of questions — how much of a more-than-human

Lucia Pietroiusti:

or-non human being sense of self are we able to intuit and

Lucia Pietroiusti:

appreciate? To hopefully come out on the other side with just

Lucia Pietroiusti:

a tiny bit of a slightly larger intuition, not only of how we

Lucia Pietroiusti:

exist on this planet, and how we share it with more than human

Lucia Pietroiusti:

beings, what our responsibility in relation to that sharing, and

Lucia Pietroiusti:

also what art,

Filipa Ramos:

poetry,

Lucia Pietroiusti:

science

Filipa Ramos:

when it dreams,

Lucia Pietroiusti:

and so many other forms of expression,

Filipa Ramos:

might, in fact, be here on this earth to do?

Alex Jordan:

My name is Alex Jordan, and I'm a scientist. I'm

Alex Jordan:

a scientist very interested in the questions that we have as

Alex Jordan:

humans about how animals experience the world, their

Alex Jordan:

sense of self, their sense of awareness, their perception,

Alex Jordan:

perhaps their consciousness, and how we might as humans,

Alex Jordan:

understand and interpret and ask questions of these animals that

Alex Jordan:

we might better understand their worlds.

Alex Jordan:

Generally speaking, at a scientific level, I'm interested

Alex Jordan:

in the broad question of how behavior evolves. How, in the

Alex Jordan:

transition from simple life to more complex forms of life,

Alex Jordan:

including our own form of life, behaviors have evolved,

Alex Jordan:

cognitive capacities have evolved, and traits that help

Alex Jordan:

animals interact with the world and experience the world have

Alex Jordan:

evolved.

Alex Jordan:

Some research we've just published this year was about

Alex Jordan:

sleep, and potentially dreaming in spiders. And so we've done

Alex Jordan:

this work here demonstrating that jumping spiders, these

Alex Jordan:

beautiful, intelligent creatures have periods of REM sleep, rapid

Alex Jordan:

eye movement, sleep. This is a trait that was once thought

Alex Jordan:

exists, as many traits are thought to exist only in humans.

Alex Jordan:

But now we're starting to expand our perception and understanding

Alex Jordan:

that the idea of dreaming for a spider for a fish for a plant

Alex Jordan:

may not be that far off.

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

It's delightful to dream together in

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

the belly of a whale. aWhat does it feel like to be a fish or a

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

bird or a plant?

Rain Wu:

The rivers and the glaciers, the big mammals and

Rain Wu:

the imperceptible microbes, the small algae, and the complex

Rain Wu:

trees.

Alex Jordan:

When I showed you this tree, this evolutionary

Alex Jordan:

tree, it's really important for me that that tree is not in a

Alex Jordan:

line. There's not a ladder that humans sit on the top of, and

Alex Jordan:

chimps are nearer to us, and then dolphins are nearer then —

Alex Jordan:

that evolution is pushing all animals towards. This is an

Alex Jordan:

absurd concept. Evolution produces solutions and animals

Alex Jordan:

and organisms that fulfill whatever purpose is required and

Alex Jordan:

whatever purpose they have. In my opinion, both my personal but

Alex Jordan:

also scientific opinion, many fish and many of the animals and

Alex Jordan:

organisms I deal with are just as intelligent and just as

Alex Jordan:

sophisticated and just as subtle, in many ways, as some of

Alex Jordan:

these species.

Alex Jordan:

And so a lot of my work is done in the places where these

Alex Jordan:

animals live. I try to take all of our approaches and questions

Alex Jordan:

out into the wild. Ours is a is a practice of going to the

Alex Jordan:

places where these animals are, trying to disturb them as little

Alex Jordan:

as we can, filming them, then using some of these machine

Alex Jordan:

learning and artificial intelligence approaches to help

Alex Jordan:

us understand and decompose and maybe intuit what these animals

Alex Jordan:

are feeling and experiencing — of one another and of the world

Alex Jordan:

around them. Contextualizing this behavior, of having our

Alex Jordan:

questions asked in the places where these animals live. And

Alex Jordan:

that means we have to understand and try and appreciate where

Alex Jordan:

they live. So we're not divorcing them from their

Alex Jordan:

experience — from their evolutionary history. We're

Alex Jordan:

trying to situate our studies in those places and recreate in

Alex Jordan:

silico or in some kind of analytical framework, the

Alex Jordan:

interactions they have not just with one another, but with the

Alex Jordan:

world around them.

Nahum Mantra:

Even the word environment, right, like the

Nahum Mantra:

more-than-human world has been reduced to an environment — like

Nahum Mantra:

just like a backdrop where the human drama unfolds.

Alex Jordan:

Some of my research has has asked the question, this

Alex Jordan:

classic test we have which is called the mirror test, in which

Alex Jordan:

an animal is presented, like here, with a mirror and asked...

Alex Jordan:

does it recognize its reflection as self or is it unable to do

Alex Jordan:

that... that thing that we do? Is it unable to deal with the

Alex Jordan:

concept of self? And this mirror test is a test in which you are

Alex Jordan:

supposed to see yourself in a reflection, and there's a mark

Alex Jordan:

on your body somewhere that you can't see, except with the

Alex Jordan:

mirror. And if you touch yourself, rather than touch the

Alex Jordan:

mirror, then you've understood that you exist in that

Alex Jordan:

reflection — that reflection is you. It's not some other entity.

Alex Jordan:

And this is wonderful. This is a perfectly valid test, provided

Alex Jordan:

you care. Provided you care that there's a mark on your body.

Alex Jordan:

Provided you have the vanity, let's say to... to worry that

Alex Jordan:

something about your appearance has changed.

Filipa Ramos:

Oh, I look different. Wait, but it's me.

Alex Jordan:

Is it a problem of motivation? Or is it a problem

Alex Jordan:

of intelligence? Can they not understand the context, or do

Alex Jordan:

they simply not care in the same way we do?

Onome Ekeh:

You know, what does wealth mean for a sparrow? Is

Onome Ekeh:

it, sort of, this ability to flock?

Alex Jordan:

and I settled on a species called the cleaner

Alex Jordan:

wrasse. The cleaner wrasse we thought was perfect, because it

Alex Jordan:

does care about these marks. Its whole biology, its whole

Alex Jordan:

cognitive capacity and its ecology is centered around this

Alex Jordan:

idea of seeing marks on the skin and trying to remove them.

Alex Jordan:

That's what it does. Because its whole existence is about finding

Alex Jordan:

and removing parasites from client fish.

Lucia Pietroiusti:

You can only interpret the test as revealing

Lucia Pietroiusti:

something if the behavior can be considered strange or unusual in

Lucia Pietroiusti:

some way. And similarly, the notion of recognizing a mark

Lucia Pietroiusti:

somewhere, is also an experience of recognizing oneself with a

Lucia Pietroiusti:

kind of strangeness.

Alex Jordan:

But this is a really important question. What

Alex Jordan:

on earth is unusual for an animal? How do you as a human

Alex Jordan:

observer, me as a scientist decide what an animal should or

Alex Jordan:

should not be doing? And therefore what is unusual for an

Alex Jordan:

animal? This is not not a simple question. I'm not being

Alex Jordan:

facetious here. This is a genuine question about our

Alex Jordan:

expectations and intuition of non human animals.

Onome Ekeh:

You know, you almost don't recognize what's being

Onome Ekeh:

said.

Alex Jordan:

Hang on, this is not another individual. It's

Alex Jordan:

copying everything I do. Maybe it's me. And in this phase,

Alex Jordan:

humans perform unusual behaviors.

Federico Campagna:

I think what's remarkable about dreams

Federico Campagna:

is that while you are in a dream is really not very strange at

Federico Campagna:

all. Everything is remarkably normal. It becomes strange, the

Federico Campagna:

moment you exit the dream, and then you look back, and then you

Federico Campagna:

realize that the two don't match up.

Alex Jordan:

But for these fish, this was a very clear behavior,

Alex Jordan:

that they were doing something completely outside of their

Alex Jordan:

repertoire. Some of them are very easy to interpret. Upside

Alex Jordan:

Down swimming — fish do not swim upside down, unless it's time to

Alex Jordan:

buy yourself a new goldfish. Now, if you think about it, one

Alex Jordan:

of the main barriers that we might have in using these kinds

Alex Jordan:

of tests across animals is that if they're designed for humans,

Alex Jordan:

how do we expect an animal without hands or fingers to be

Alex Jordan:

able to pass them in the same way that a human would?

Onome Ekeh:

You know, you wonder, like how all these

Onome Ekeh:

different things put together? That don't fit?

Alex Jordan:

One way, we've started to interrogate that

Alex Jordan:

question and try to get a deeper handle on what a fish is

Alex Jordan:

experiencing and what kind of behaviors it's performing, and

Alex Jordan:

what those behaviors might mean, is to start to attempt to

Alex Jordan:

understand the behavioral language of fishes and other

Alex Jordan:

animals. And as I've mentioned, we're doing that with the aid of

Alex Jordan:

artificial intelligence. Because for us to look at something like

Alex Jordan:

a fish and understand what the postures, movements and

Alex Jordan:

interactions mean, is an incredible challenge and

Alex Jordan:

potentially impossible. And so we're using an approach called

Alex Jordan:

behavioral decomposition. Behavioral decomposition is a

Alex Jordan:

method in which you look at every single movement, an animal

Alex Jordan:

makes — every single change in its legs, its postures, whatever

Alex Jordan:

it is. And you can break those behaviors down into these sort

Alex Jordan:

of dimensions of kinematics, and build them into this map of

Alex Jordan:

behavior.

Alex Jordan:

The fish will go to the mirror, observe its reflection, observe

Alex Jordan:

that it has a mark on its body, will go away from the mirror,

Alex Jordan:

will scrape that mark against the gravel or a rock, and then

Alex Jordan:

go back to the mirror to check. If the fish go through all three

Alex Jordan:

of the phases that I told you, and then attempt to remove this

Alex Jordan:

mark, they have passed the test. By the original definition of

Alex Jordan:

the test, by all other standards that are applied to all other

Alex Jordan:

organisms, they have passed the test. Now is this evidence that

Alex Jordan:

they are self conscious — that they are self aware? Is the

Alex Jordan:

performance of this behavior enough to convince you that a

Alex Jordan:

fish is self aware?

Filipa Ramos:

When you're obsessed with something

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

and once you start looking for something

Filipa Ramos:

you see that something everywhere.

Rain Wu:

The sky told stories, remembered legends and provided

Rain Wu:

clues.

Yussef Agbo-Ola:

Sometimes you can be suspended in a dream and

Yussef Agbo-Ola:

not necessarily be connected to time, but still connected to

Yussef Agbo-Ola:

this idea of rhythm. Constantly in this rhythmic cycle of

Yussef Agbo-Ola:

nutrients... it's like you're... you're eating reality, in a way.

Rain Wu:

Food is the connection from distant and exotic

Rain Wu:

landscapes, to domestic backyards — going near and far,

Rain Wu:

stretching across the Earth's surface. It connects the sun

Rain Wu:

above and the soil below, like a vertical axis of life.

Yussef Agbo-Ola:

And at the same time, you're reflecting on that

Yussef Agbo-Ola:

digestion.

Rain Wu:

Food connects our bodies with the surrounding

Rain Wu:

world. Nothing is more intimate than eating. What somebody sees

Rain Wu:

can be seen by others. What somebody hears can be heard by

Rain Wu:

others. But what somebody eats, nobdy else can eat. There's

Rain Wu:

nothing more private, more introverted, more turned inwards

Rain Wu:

on itself.

Onome Ekeh:

A transformation takes place

Rain Wu:

Thus the world was created. And out of Chaos, the

Rain Wu:

orderly and complex Cosmos arose.

Lucia Pietroiusti:

This most intimate of absorptions is what

Lucia Pietroiusti:

brings you to the Cosmos.

Rain Wu:

Cosmos, the physical universe of things seen and

Rain Wu:

touched, and the spiritual entities they existed beyond.

Federico Campagna:

We'll get there by steps — we will go

Federico Campagna:

through three great transformations. And we will

Federico Campagna:

start by setting the scene — setting the parameters of this

Federico Campagna:

journey towards human and more than human dreams. The

Federico Campagna:

parameters are very simple. There are two parameters for our

Federico Campagna:

inquiry. There are two simple words — nothing, something.

Federico Campagna:

Nothing, something.

Federico Campagna:

Now, the important thing are not the words. The little pause

Federico Campagna:

between them is the greatest mystery of all, for science,

Federico Campagna:

theology, philosophy since forever. How is it possible that

Federico Campagna:

nothing might become something? This might sound like a very

Federico Campagna:

academic and useless question. But in reality, it has to do

Federico Campagna:

with everything we hold dear. It has to do with the very stuff of

Federico Campagna:

the world. Asking ourselves the question "how is it possible

Federico Campagna:

that nothing might become something" means asking

Federico Campagna:

ourselves "How did it happen? That all that surrounds us —

Federico Campagna:

every single thing, reality as a whole, at some point, came into

Federico Campagna:

existence." And it's been at the center of our imagination and

Federico Campagna:

concerns, as I was saying, since time immemorial. We could say

Federico Campagna:

literally, since the beginning, the beginning of history.

Federico Campagna:

History begins with the first written records we have

Federico Campagna:

discovered. Before that there is prehistory. About prehistory, we

Federico Campagna:

cannot say anything, because we don't know.

Federico Campagna:

And the earliest written records have to do with the problem of

Federico Campagna:

how the world came into existence. These are what are

Federico Campagna:

called Cosmogonies — so stories that tell about the birth of the

Federico Campagna:

cosmos. And these cosmogonies are very interesting because

Federico Campagna:

they address the question "how we pass from nothing to

Federico Campagna:

something". The question is "Can something come out of nothing?"

Federico Campagna:

And the answer of the mythological cosmogonies is no.

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

The idea of reincarnation, that souls

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

took on successively the bodies of multiple different species,

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

from humans to animals to plants, and back again. This

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

idea was embedded in a range of classical Greek and Roman

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

philosophy, poetry and magic. And as we'll see, reincarnation

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

raises fundamental question about where the identity of an

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

organic entity rests, and how it is constituted. Is it in the

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

movements, feelings and capabilities of the body? In the

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

ability to vocalize or speak? Or in the capacity to remember or

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

dream?

Federico Campagna:

To the question, "did from nothing,

Federico Campagna:

something come out," the answer is no. Nothing is an impossible

Federico Campagna:

philosophical concept. It is not just unthinkable, but it is

Federico Campagna:

impossible. Since things exist, at least we exist as points of

Federico Campagna:

awareness in the world as the object to our awareness, since

Federico Campagna:

there is existence, non existence cannot take place.

Federico Campagna:

Since there is being, non-being is totally impossible. So, to

Federico Campagna:

the question of the beginning, how you pass from nothing to

Federico Campagna:

something, they say, "In the beginning, there was not

Federico Campagna:

nothing. In the beginning that was something, but something

Federico Campagna:

special." This something was ineffable — is something beyond

Federico Campagna:

words... impossible to describe. You have philosophers and

Federico Campagna:

theologians talking about this. Then, this something fragmented

Federico Campagna:

itself into many. Simone Weil says "decreated itself".

Federico Campagna:

Why am I talking about this? How is this relevant in any way to

Federico Campagna:

our lives today? Well, the question of the beginning

Federico Campagna:

becomes relevant to our life today if we look at it in a

Federico Campagna:

mirror — be like those fish that we saw earlier. If we look at it

Federico Campagna:

in a mirror, the question of the origin is the question of the

Federico Campagna:

end. The question of what happens before birth is the same

Federico Campagna:

as the question of what happens after death. And now we start

Federico Campagna:

seeing how the question of what happens after death concerns us.

Federico Campagna:

There is a certain urgency to the question "After something,

Federico Campagna:

can there be nothing? After this life, can we be utterly

Federico Campagna:

annihilated?" And here we see that the intuition of the

Federico Campagna:

eternity of being becomes a powerful protection. Because it

Federico Campagna:

says that since things did not have a beginning in nothing,

Federico Campagna:

they cannot have an end in nothing. Nothing is an invalid

Federico Campagna:

concept — philosophically is an impossible concept.

Federico Campagna:

What we have is that the beginning had to do with the

Federico Campagna:

fragmentation of boundaries, an establishment of boundaries. And

Federico Campagna:

the end, similarly has to do with the reshuffling of

Federico Campagna:

boundaries. It's just a matter of movements of boundaries.

Federico Campagna:

There is a way in which we can understand it metaphorically.

Federico Campagna:

The world being the dream, and the characters of the dream

Federico Campagna:

being the inhabitants of the world, including ourselves. Like

Federico Campagna:

us, the inhabitants of a dream have no recollection of their

Federico Campagna:

origin, and no horizon of their end. And like us, the

Federico Campagna:

inhabitants of a dream are made of the same substance, as the

Federico Campagna:

mind of the sleeper. If you for a moment, consider what is the

Federico Campagna:

substance of which a dream is made, you realize that is the

Federico Campagna:

substance of the mind — there is a continuity. The fragments are

Federico Campagna:

made of the same substance of the monolith.

Federico Campagna:

And in fact, this idea that it's possible to understand the world

Federico Campagna:

as a dream, and the relationship between the world and the other

Federico Campagna:

worldly (so, before the beginning, after the end), is

Federico Campagna:

not just a metaphor that I've made up, but is a typical way of

Federico Campagna:

understanding the world. In many philosophies, theologies and

Federico Campagna:

mythologies from from all over the world.

Federico Campagna:

The idea is that the world that we see around ourselves is a

Federico Campagna:

dream of the eternal being. It is a dream in the mind of the

Federico Campagna:

eternal being. And that everything we see around

Federico Campagna:

ourselves, including ourselves as individuals, and the things

Federico Campagna:

and the people around us are fundamentally characters of this

Federico Campagna:

dream of this eternally-sleeping mind. And to this mind, that is

Federico Campagna:

dreaming up the whole of reality, it is not unfitting to

Federico Campagna:

give the name of God.

Federico Campagna:

Now, this realization can have consequences. Of course, in

Federico Campagna:

philosophy, often you observe a hypothesis about reality, you

Federico Campagna:

embrace them, and you see what happens, okay? You try them out.

Federico Campagna:

There is an engineering aspect to philosophy, very much. So if

Federico Campagna:

you try out this perspective, it could have, you know, a

Federico Campagna:

paralyzing effect or an ecstatic effect. Ecstatic effect, typical

Federico Campagna:

mystical reaction. A paralyzing effect, in the sense that you

Federico Campagna:

start asking yourself, "Doesn't this mean, then, that we are

Federico Campagna:

passive elements inside the dream?" If we are the characters

Federico Campagna:

being dreamt up by a great divine mind, to use the

Federico Campagna:

theological metaphor, doesn't this mean that we cannot do

Federico Campagna:

anything inside this dream to modify it? It's dreamt up by a

Federico Campagna:

mind greater than our own. If you remain equal with the

Federico Campagna:

metaphor of the dream, you realize that you can ask this

Federico Campagna:

question to your own dreams. Inside your own dream, what is

Federico Campagna:

the distribution of agency? Is it you? That is dreaming up the

Federico Campagna:

dream and directing it and unfolding it? Or should you

Federico Campagna:

rather say that in the dream, the, the one with the least

Federico Campagna:

agency is you, while in fact, it's the characters of the dream

Federico Campagna:

that unfold the story of which they are the protagonist. The

Federico Campagna:

dream dreams itself through its characters, typically. And by

Federico Campagna:

the same token, inside this world dream this dream world, it

Federico Campagna:

is us as the characters that have the possibility of

Federico Campagna:

unfolding the dream narration and the responsibility of doing

Federico Campagna:

it the best we can, as well as we can.

Onome Ekeh:

So I thought I'd try it out.

Alex Jordan:

Dreams and imagination and abstraction can

Alex Jordan:

function to place you in scenarios that you didn't

Alex Jordan:

experience. And that could be considered in the scientific

Alex Jordan:

terminology, adaptive. It allows your body and your mind to

Alex Jordan:

explore scenarios, and maybe prepare you for them, even if

Alex Jordan:

you didn't experience them.

Federico Campagna:

So dreamers that are aware of their act of

Federico Campagna:

creation of the world, being part of a fiction, they

Federico Campagna:

understand that they can redeem the world only through narrative

Federico Campagna:

means.

Nahum Mantra:

You know, because without the heart, there is no

Nahum Mantra:

mind. There's no blood that pumps into the brain.

Hatis Noit:

Yeah, every time I feel somehow lost, I try to

Hatis Noit:

connect to the memory of the nature there — the wild energy

Hatis Noit:

of the land.

Federico Campagna:

We started with the first great

Federico Campagna:

transformation, birth — the beginning. The second great

Federico Campagna:

transformation, death — the end. And here we have the third

Federico Campagna:

transformation. And the third transformation is a

Federico Campagna:

transformation beyond the frontiers of the human.

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

The language of demon is a bit

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

tricky for us because it's used by Christians to refer

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

specifically to evil demons that have a particular place in the

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

cosmos and in the story of creation. Whereas, in the kind

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

of broader Greek and Roman usage, it's a slightly

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

stretchier term, and it tends to mean a kind of an intermediate

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

spirits, something between Gods and humans.

Onome Ekeh:

If she's to go into the forest realm of spirits and

Onome Ekeh:

ghosts, she needs to have night vision.

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

Other fragments of his work reveal

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

that he identified himself as a restless demon. The Greek word

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

is daimon, a kind of inbetweener spirit, and one who's been

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

exiled from the gods — perhaps a punishment for some unspecified

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

crime. In this snippet of text, Empedocles recalls multiple

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

previous births, moving between genders and species apparently

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

without effort. He becomes most eloquent when remembering the

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

past bodily experience of being a little wordless fish leaping

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

out of the sea.

Nahum Mantra:

When I retreat as far into myself as possible, I

Nahum Mantra:

become aware only of the shadow cast by my faint currents. The

Nahum Mantra:

water knows no natural boundary, and occupies all niches.

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

Did souls have a basic identity as human

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

or animal? Were there limits to where souls could go? Plato

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

thought that human souls could get inside animals. But

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

Porphyry, a philosopher in the Platonist tradition, thought

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

human souls could only enter human bodies. Otherwise,

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

Porphyry worries, a mother who'd returned into the body of a mule

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

might perhaps end up carrying her own son on her back. Was the

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

destination body for reincarnation a deliberate

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

choice of the soul, as related by Plato's Er. Or was it random?

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

In which bodies breathe in souls as they're blown about in the

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

air — And that's something apparently taught by followers

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

of Pythagoras and Orpheus.

Lucia Pietroiusti:

And so the question that I have for you

Lucia Pietroiusti:

over and over and over again, and it's not the first time that

Lucia Pietroiusti:

I've asked you it, is what could be a possible metaphysics of the

Lucia Pietroiusti:

more than human?

Federico Campagna:

Metaphysics is a Greek term that has to do

Federico Campagna:

with what is beyond the physics. It was originally assigned to

Federico Campagna:

the, the organization of Aristotle's works. He wrote a

Federico Campagna:

work on the Physics and the work after that was called the

Federico Campagna:

Metaphysics, so the one after the work on the physics. So it

Federico Campagna:

was just a cataloging entry.

Federico Campagna:

But it has to do with more than cataloguing. It has to do with

Federico Campagna:

the difference between what we see around ourselves, the

Federico Campagna:

physics, what we can experience in a particular way. And our

Federico Campagna:

questioning about what there is beyond. Beyond can mean many

Federico Campagna:

different things. Beyond can mean in the realm of the

Federico Campagna:

invisible, or in the realm of the infinitely small, or in the

Federico Campagna:

realm of the immaterial, or in the realm of the possibilities

Federico Campagna:

that are not actualized, and so on and so forth. Or of the

Federico Campagna:

impalpable, ineffable structures that hold up reality. Now, to a

Federico Campagna:

large extent, the things that... the structures that hold up

Federico Campagna:

reality are not so much inscribed within things, but

Federico Campagna:

they are inscribed within our mind. So within the way in which

Federico Campagna:

we perceive things. And in that case, we realize that the way in

Federico Campagna:

which we... set our interpretation of the

Federico Campagna:

perceptions that we have from the world goes to construct

Federico Campagna:

different worlds. So, it is world building in that sense. We

Federico Campagna:

could use another words — a Greek word "Cosmopoetics".

Federico Campagna:

Cosmopoetics is literally the same as worldbuilding. But maybe

Federico Campagna:

it's a little bit clearer, because Cosmopoetics means...

Federico Campagna:

Cosmos, literally order. So the setting of a particular order.

Federico Campagna:

And this setting is Poetics from the Greek popoieîn, "to make" —

Federico Campagna:

but also the same word that means "poetry".

Federico Campagna:

Artists, cultural producers, because they intervene

Federico Campagna:

particularly on the way in which we see things, they are

Federico Campagna:

opticians. You know, they are eye surgeons to a large extent.

Federico Campagna:

Through their poetic work, they construct worlds, and they help

Federico Campagna:

us to construct different worlds because they intervene at that

Federico Campagna:

level. They are not physical engineers in that sense, but

Federico Campagna:

they are metaphysical engineers. To the extent to which our

Federico Campagna:

shifting of perspective constructs different worlds.

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

Christians thought that human souls were

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

restless but also fundamentally individual, singular, and

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

monogamous in their relationship with bodies. That said, human

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

bodies could themselves be magicked into horses or

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

possessed by demons, so they were also porous and unstable.

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

The most threatening creatures in the atmosphere were demons,

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

who could operate inside human souls and bodies and minds,

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

animating their dreams with obscene thoughts and producing

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

powerful waking fantasies. Demons own thin bodies can take

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

on apparently more solid disguises as wild animals or

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

beautiful women, but they were fundamentally vulnerable too —

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

evanescing at exorcism into a puff of smoke. We've also seen

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

how some Greeks and Romans had variously imagined demons as

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

close to or even identical with human souls, and also as souls

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

as much less bound to singular bodies. Some fortunate or

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

privileged humans might even be able to recall a faint memory of

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

an earlier incarnation, whether as a human, an animal, or even a

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

plant. Whether such memories and dreams of a past self were

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

punitive or ecstatic, depends rather on what you think it

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

might be like to live as a bird or a shrub.

Nahum Mantra:

There, I was exiled from myself. But nothing

Nahum Mantra:

lasts forever.

Onome Ekeh:

I've been trying to recreate that story, over and

Onome Ekeh:

over.

Alex Jordan:

There's this idea that dreaming is feeding

Alex Jordan:

nonsense into the system, such that nonsense can be

Alex Jordan:

discriminated from sense. And this is, in fact, at a practical

Alex Jordan:

level, one of the methods we have to use in many of these

Alex Jordan:

technological approaches. We have to feed noise into the

Alex Jordan:

system to differentiate it from signal.

Lucia Pietroiusti:

And now of course, a machine is complex as

Lucia Pietroiusti:

the world itself is the world.

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

Of course, it's hard to tell from

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

these little tiny fragments of archaic poetry by people like

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

Empedocles and Aeneas, how they related to these past selves,

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

and indeed whether that animal incarnations dreamed in the same

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

way of their human incarnations. Looking more broadly, we can see

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

that there is a great amount of disagreement among poets and

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

natural philosophers in antiquity, about which animals

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

dreamed, what they dreamed about, all done on the basis of

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

empirical observation and inference.

Alex Jordan:

And it is our hope that ultimately, by looking at

Alex Jordan:

these animals in their natural environment, by understanding

Alex Jordan:

their experiences, by understanding their context, by

Alex Jordan:

understanding their behavioral outputs, we can then bring them

Alex Jordan:

into the conversation — to tell us what they want, what their

Alex Jordan:

aesthetic preferences are, what their desires are. But also what

Alex Jordan:

their language means, and perhaps if we're lucky, what

Alex Jordan:

their subjective experience of the world may really be.

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

If you look more broadly at the kind of

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

spread of literary and visual production, you can see that

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

there is some understanding that the world is interconnected and

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

that human lives might contain echoes of a kind of previous

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

vegetal animalistic existence. So it seems to me that there are

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

lots of different explanations for where dreams come from in

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

antiquity. And some of them are very naturalistic and sort of

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

pragmatic and to do with bodily movements. And others are much

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

more related to the sublime, be it the Divine or the Demonic —

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

and it's particularly there that you find notions that the dream

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

might be an uncovering of something by some third agency.

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

There might be some interest in revealing to humans... what else

Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe:

they've been.

Mendel Skulski:

This episode of Future Ecologies features the

Mendel Skulski:

words and voices of Lucia Pietroiusti, Filipa Ramos, Alex

Mendel Skulski:

Jordan, Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe, Rain Wu, Nahum Mantra, Onome

Mendel Skulski:

Ekeh, Federico Campagna, Yussef Agbo-Ola, and Hatis Noit

Adam Huggins:

All recorded in November of 2022 as part of The

Adam Huggins:

Shape of a Circle in the Dream of a Fish,

Mendel Skulski:

The remix of which you heard here was

Mendel Skulski:

produced by me, Mendel Skulski, and my co host, Adam Huggins,

Adam Huggins:

with music by Yussef Agbo-Ola, Hatis Noit,

Adam Huggins:

Any-Angled Light, and Thumbug.

Mendel Skulski:

The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish, is

Mendel Skulski:

a recurrent festival, curated by Lucia Pietroiusti and Filipa

Mendel Skulski:

Ramos, initiated by the Serpentine Galleries in London

Mendel Skulski:

since 2018.

Adam Huggins:

And held last year in partnership with the Galeria

Adam Huggins:

Municipal do Porto.

Mendel Skulski:

Special thanks to Kostas Stasinopoulos, as well

Mendel Skulski:

as Adam's Electric Sheep Radio co-hosts, Ryder Thomas White and

Mendel Skulski:

Samantha Ruth who you heard briefly at the top.

Adam Huggins:

You can hear more from us

Mendel Skulski:

and reach out across the dream and say hello

Adam Huggins:

at futureecologies.net

Mendel Skulski:

Or wherever you find your podcasts.

Adam Huggins:

Until next time.

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