The INSTITUTE FOR TRANSHUMANIST CEPHALOPOD EVOLUTION and Learning from Octopuses

Growing up near the Atlantic Ocean my summer days were often spent underwater. Diving like a porpoise and then rising for air, I felt a kinship with other denizens of the aquatic world. My love of water grew while at summer camp in New Hampshire beside a lake, where I became fish-like as I practiced water ballet. These encounters fueled a love of nature and a fascination with the unknown. So naturally in adulthood I gravitated towards wide-open terrain, where I found my place among emerging technologies and innovative artists’ ideas.

It follows that I was delighted to engage with Miriam Simun’s INSTITUTE FOR TRANSHUMANIST CEPHALOPOD EVOLUTION, an interdisciplinary installation- exhibition, workshop series, and month-long residency at Recess in Brooklyn. Upon entering the space, I hunkered down and sat on a floor covered with a soft, tufted fabric that also covered the ceiling and adjacent walls. The fabric’s dark blue color infused the cocoon-like space with a dreamy atmosphere. The gentle soundtrack of mellow piano playing coupled with natural watery sounds added to my already peaceful state. Over the next twenty-five minutes I followed Simun’s video YOUR URGE TO BREATHE IS A LIE (2019), presented on a large flat screen positioned directly in front of me. What caught my attention was the movement of the different performers—individual cuttlefish, squid, and octopuses (marine animals known as cephalopods), as well as a corps of contemporary dancers. The motion of their bodies had a similarity. It made no difference whether what I saw was arms, hands or feet, or whether the movement was carried out underwater, in a studio, or in the open air. Before experiencing the INSTITUTE FOR TRANSHUMANIST CEPHALOPOD EVOLUTION, I had never given much thought to cephalopods, believed to be the among the most ancient and adaptable creatures on Earth; nor had I ever considered what these entities might conjure up for human beings. In my encounter with Simun, I discovered someone whose work not only bridges art, science, and human behavior, but addresses our need to operate as a community in a world where nature often appears to be debased. The artist’s insightful work evolved out of her graduate studies at MIT, and out of her interest in climate change and concern for the future. Studying with MIT scientists, she gravitated towards cephalopods, with their “distributed intelligence.” She thought that maybe the future of the human had to do with two or more humans (and maybe non-humans) coming together to become, even briefly, “a single organism.” She was trying to figure out how to “train” this ability, and thought of moments where this happens—in music improvisation, during sex, and other times where a kind of “third intelligence” emerges in real time out of a kind of a brain- body meld. Having experienced such moments on the dancefloor as a raver during college, it made sense when her friend suggested she try contact improvisation, a dance form out of which a kind of group intelligence emerges. She realized that contact dance, originated by Steve Paxton in 1972, would be a useful tool for her.

Simun wondered how might we, as humans, adapt to life under the water? This led her to want to become a cephalopod. She learned to free dive and boosted her ability to hold her breath underwater for nearly three minutes, a considerable feat. Around the same time, she began working with pearl divers, synchronized swimmers, and contact dancers. By combining swimming and dance, Simun trained herself to behave and think like an octopus, a creature with nine brains and an extraordinary sense of touch manifested through sensors covering the surface of its eight arms, each of which makes independent decisions. Octopuses exist on intimate terms with their environment, with a blurred distinction between the exterior and their interior.

Simun wanted to know, how might we humans “see” with our skin, as well as attend to the wave of sensations inside our bodies, developing both tactile perception and interoception? She went on to develop and conduct workshops, such as those offered at Recess, entitled How to Become an Octopus (and sometimes squid). For these, the artist guides participants through a two-hour program of “psycho-physical” exercises that she developed over the years. The skeleton of the practice was first created with choreographer luciana achugar and then evolved over time through additional collaborations with marine biologists, engineers, dancers, and synchronized swimmers. She trains cephalopod sensitivities and capacities through exercises that help humans enact new ways of being with themselves, with each other, and in the world. On land or in a pool, workshop participants carry out team building exercises that open them up to shared sensing and decision-making capacities.

Simun’s INSTITUTE FOR TRANSHUMANIST CEPHALOPOD EVOLUTION expanded my horizon and reconnected me to my own early experiences of kinship and wonder. The exhibition provided an opportunity to question the meaning of nature, and to explore new ways of relating to the body, to other people, and especially to underwater creatures. Through anthropomorphizing, while watching Simun’s video, I came to regard the magnificent octopus with its omniscient eyes as almost human, or even as a potential friend. I remembered growing up and wondering about my father’s fascination with the raconteur Tom Lehrer’s witty number, I’m in love with an octopus. After a little research, I discovered that Lehrer (1928-2025), a songwriter, satirist, and mathematician, once noted,"The real issues I don't think most people touch...” And so, I wondered, why do we avoid diving headlong into what is beyond the superficial thoughts that haphazardly dart in and out of our minds? Moreover, how do we determine which ideas matter and are worthy of our attention and action? This is all especially germane today at a time of ecological dysfunction.

Simun’s installation made me think about anonymity, and consider my own place in the built-up urban environment of Manhattan.Trapped within a multitude of people in a jam packed subway crammed body to body, or within a horde walking along a sidewalk, why do we feel better in a crowded tree-filled park or in Grand Central Station’s populous crown jewel, the high ceilinged Main Concourse? This led me to recall The Moving Garden (2012) exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, Lee Mingwei’s work on the themes of trust and self-awareness that created a potential for active exchange. I’ll never forget the moment Mingwei handed me a beautiful red rose with instructions to give it to a stranger. En route home, when I gave the rose to someone seated next to me on the rush hour subway, the gratitude on the face of this very tired woman was a profound moment. How do we repeat and continue such a transformative experience in everyday life, with the potential for discovery, connection and renewal? This is what Simun strives for through her art and her workshops.

Miriam Simun creates installation and performative artwork that does not conform to conventional categories and at the same time has an urgency. The artist aims to teach her audience how to develop a broader awareness of their immediate environment; and moreover, how to discover the ability and flexibility to quickly re-orient, adapt, and shape-shift the self for best resiliency in today’s mutable environment. The INSTITUTE FOR TRANSHUMANIST CEPHALOPOD EVOLUTION is all about thinking outside the box to find new ways of listening and relating with our body to the human and “more- than-human” world. As members of her audience, we should be grateful.