WHERE SYSTEMS THEORY
MEETS
BIOSEMIOTICS
Stanley Picker Fellowship Application 2025
PROPOSAL
I will advance a new perspective to the conversation about AI, by broadening our concept of ‘intelligence’ from a multi-species emphasis on different forms of ‘sensing’ by organic life.
Capturing 4K microscopic video of organisms from water samples taken from the River Hogsmill that springs forth at my childhood library: Bourne Hall, where I first engaged with language, which then winds its way past the Stanley Picker Gallery.
These will combine with a sculptural apparatus in the vein of Nancy Holts system works, bringing a fresh perspective to systems theory, informed by the new multi-species research on biosemiotics emerging from posthuman studies.
River Hogsmill winding its way past Stanley PIcker Gallery
Bourne Hall Library, Ewell where the River Hogsmill begins
recent ramblers walk following the River Hogsmill from Bourne Hall Library, Ewell, to Kingston, where it meets the River Thames after passing Stanley Picker Gallery
the beginning of the River Hogsmill
at Bourne Hall Library lake
MEANING MAKING FROM A MULTI-SPECIES PERSPECTIVE
The fellowship would afford me a very important moment in my practice, allowing me to develop my microbial perspective and sculptural apparatus with a uniquely personal connection, with 4K microscopic footage of samples taken from the river that springs forth at my childhood library and winds its way past the Stanley Picker Gallery, in response to the new developments in bio-semiotics.
It draws together my work on materiality at a microbial scale, developed from two recent works:
My ‘more-than-human’ inquiry deepened through collaboration with Friends of the Earth Northern Ireland at Lough Neagh, the largest freshwater lake in the UK and Ireland. Devastated by cyanobacteria blooms in 2023, my emphasis on the materiallity of microbial life and nutrients, was adopted as a guide for environmental advocacy. This microbial scale of attention continues in my upcoming project at Prospect Cottage, last home of Derek Jarman. Inspired by Jarman’s Jubilee and theories of symbiosis, I explored the slipperiness of DNA, diversity, and kinship, echoing Ariel’s call to “worship the world’s diversity,” lest we deny our own true nature.
The internationally renown posthuman theoretician N. Katherine Hayles just published a book scrutinising these ideas: Bacteria and AI. I have known Kate for a long time and have been invited to visit her in California, where I will film our discussion. Here, she establishes her claim that if an organism responds to stimuli from the environment that then leads to action, by definition, this qualifies as a cognitive process.
This is of great interest, and I believe broadens the discussion of AI in some very interesting ways, with the potential of decentring (but not de-valuing) human intelligence, amongst a host of other forms of sentience such as cellular cognition. As well as recognising the roles non-cognitive processes take, in contrast, and in synthesis with data processing, machine learning, GAN and so much more.
I would love to utilise the workshops that Bori kindly showed me around, to build the sculptures and 3D imaging to bring the 4K microscopic footage to life. These will make visible the mostly unseen microscopic scale of life underwater, which contain extraordinary vistas, whilst connecting us to ideas of language and meaning making, via the River Hogsmill that runs from my childhood library at Bourne Hall, all the way to the Stanley Picker Gallery in Kingston.
Here, I am afforded a uniquely personal context to elaborate on these exciting new findings in bio-semiotics, and contribute to the legacy of art made in response to systems theory, whilst speaking to the current universal plight of climate crisis. New research informs us that, whilst language might appear to be the preserve of humans, alongside the making of signs and symbols, this is in fact, entirely in question. Organisms use of various signalling techniques leads us also into some very interesting new territory with regards communication technologies, and starts to dream of what an AI might feel like, informed by a plethora of multi-species inputs.
The internationally renown posthuman research theoretician N. Katherine Hayles, has just published a book scrutinising exactly these ideas in her book Bacteria and AI. I have known Kate for a long time now, and have been invited to visit her in California, where I will film our discussion. Here, she establishes her claim that if an organism responds to stimuli from the environment that then leads to action, by definition, this qualifies as a cognitive process.
4K MICROSCOPIC VIDEO FOOTAGE
examples of microscopic footage taken with my microscope at Prospect Cottage, and Lough Neagh
The video is a 4K capture of a microscopic detail of a rosebush leaf from Derek Jarmans Garden. It is indicative of the kinds of vistas that are opened up by my microscope, and the 4K capacity to capture them.
We are HOLOBIONT - Derek Jarman Prospect Cottage residency 2024
NATURE DOESN'T NEED QUEERING
ITS ALREADY NATURALLY QUEER
Meeting the Lough (documentation - work in progress) views
of a multi-species perspective from Lough Neagh, that emphasises a multiple perspectives, temporalities and scales
Ballyronan Marina September 2024 - field trip - Ami Clarke, David Jewson, Les Gornall, James Orr (Friends of the Earth)
the beginnings of a video essay that informs the new emphasis on a bio-semiotic angle to the climate crisis with microscopic footage it is a study in cyanobacteria
SOUND ON
The video as critical video essay, opens up radical new approaches to climate change, drawing from the evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis’ teaching, and Katherine Hayles’ new book: Bacteria to AI, where systems theory meets biosemiotics. Decentring, but not devaluing the human, amongst a more multi-species perspective,we reconsider forms of intelligence and 'sensing' as reciprocal with their environment.
Opening up vistas from a multi-species perspective encourages a decolonial, eco-feminist, and more-than-human position to flourish, nurturing radical ways for rethinking sustainability.
SCULPTURAL APPARATUS
SYSTEM
SCULPTURE
The expressive video and sound environment interweaves with sculptural elements referencing the infrastructural apparatus; the pipes and plumbing of water treatment systems, sewage systems, as well as the financial systems that act as contemporary modes of extraction within our vulnerable water ecosystems.
The sculptural apparatus that flows into the exhibition space evokes the feeling that we are part of a much larger system, and nods towards the flows of power passing through water treatment systems, sewage pipes, and drinking water plumbing. It speaks of attempts to manage human needs within vulnerable ecosystems that include the microbial organisms depicted in the 4K video footage.
The teachings of the evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis showed us at lough Neagh, that cyanobacteria are important ancestors who brought life to the planet as we know it, by producing oxygen into the atmosphere.
We humans, ourselves, are holobionts, host to thousands of bacteria, most of which we simply couldn't live without. Margulis showed us the importance of understanding life at this truly entangled scale, where interdependencies across species suggest co-operation as a more symbiotic way of being.
the drawings above, begin to develop the sculptures, thinking through systems theory (with significant experience from Lough Neagh informing the project), with an emphasis on 'sensing' different life forms, from a multi-species perspective.
I liked that they became almost like tuning forks, with the slurry billowing between them, and how that might impact upon a visual 'system', that could start to 'read' almost like a diagram.
I am looking forward to seeing what organisms are in the River Hogsmill and being able to respond directly to this, weaving these forms into the work.
Santa Margherita Palace. Eva Mattes and Franco Mattes
Circulations (Circolazioni), 2024. Rosetta Biscotti.
Hot Water Heat, 1984. Galvanized steel pipe, valves, gauges, radiators, and water, 11 x 30 x 22 ft. Nancy Holt
PREVIOUS WORK WITH SCIENTISTS ON MICROBIAL LIFE AT LOUGH NEAGH
The new work draws together and prioritises a particular bio-semiotic emphasis developed from two recent works:
My ‘more-than-human’ inquiry deepened through collaboration with Friends of the Earth Northern Ireland at Lough Neagh, the largest freshwater lake in the UK and Ireland. Devastated by cyanobacteria blooms in 2023, my emphasis on the materiallity of microbial life and nutrients, was adopted as a guide for environmental advocacy. This microbial scale of attention continues in my upcoming project at Prospect Cottage, last home of Derek Jarman. Inspired by Jarman’s Jubilee and theories of symbiosis, I explored the slipperiness of DNA, diversity, and kinship, echoing Ariel’s call to “worship the world’s diversity,” lest we deny our own true nature.
During the project at Lough Neagh, I stayed on Ballyronan Marina, for two weeks Sept 2024, working with scientists Dave Jewson, director of the internationally renown Limnology Lab, Lough Neagh, and Les Gornall (Dr Sludge), who invented the first aneurobic digestor.
The video work I made for this began to draw together my emphasis on a multi-species perspective through collating: 4K aerial drone footage, with 4K footage from the boat, whilst being taken out by local people, with 4K underwater footage, also from the boat as well as riverbanks and canals, and microscopic footage collected from several locations around the Lough where we identifed the microcystis cyanobacteria. It aimed to bring together the deep geological time of our ancient ancestors the cyanobacteria (blue green algae) that brought forth life via the microbial mat that first brought oxygen to the planet, together with the multiple scales and temporalities that abound in the ecosystem of Lough Neagh and watershed.
Cyanobacterial remains of an
annulated tubular microfossil
Oscillatoriopsis longa
Cyanobacteria: microcystis sample from Lough Neagh collected by Ami Clarke
Transverse section of a dividing
cell of the Cynaobacterium Microcystis showing hexagonal stacking of the cylindrical gas vesicles
Petri dish photographs
of a fossil, sample, and diagram of cyanobacteria
hydrophone audio recordings underwater at Lough Neagh
with Peter Harper, Shoreline Environment Officer,
Lough Neagh Partnership
'sensing the lough'
field recordings - audio, video, monitoring of the cyanobacteria
'We live in capitalism: neoliberalism' - with reference to the feminist science fiction writer and theoretician Ursula K LeGuinn's famous quote: 'we live in capitalism'. The underwater footage shows the dispersal of the algae blooms in the water column at Portlegnone 25.08.24. situated on the outskirts of Lough Neagh, Northern Ireland. With thanks for assistance from Darragh Graham, and Navid Gornall.