Distributed Consciousness: Tentacular Critters & Verse NFTs (2021)

This project is part of the Distributed Consciousness series.

Distributed Consciousness uses cephalopods and cephalopod cognition to reflect on the distributed nature of intelligence, the radically different more-than-human intelligences we share the planet with, and the permeable and dynamic boundaries of the individual. Bodies and minds do not exist in isolation, but are constituted through relations with other beings, including those whose experience we may never fully know, and with the world they shape and are shaped by. As we face the challenges of the climate crisis and ecological devastation fueled by anthropocentric and extractivist ideologies, what are the consequences of seeing ourselves as separate from the living systems that sustain and make us?

The original online release of Distributed Consciousness comprises two linked collections on the Tezos blockchain of 256 Tentacular Critters and correspondingVerses.

Drawing on the decentralized and distributed nature of cognition, the project originated on a decentralized ‘world-computer’: the eco-friendly Tezos blockchain. Initially, it took the form of an NFT collection of 256 (2^8) unique cephalopod-like Tentacular Critters 🐙, generated with custom AI software (before tools such as Midjourney or DALL·E existed).

But cryptographically hidden in each image was a surprise, revealed a month after their release:

Each image secretly contained text, steganographically encoded in its pixels, invisible to the human eye, but readable by code.

Together the 256 images actually formed a poem, a manifesto, distributed across the blockchain, with each image containing one verse. Written in collaboration with GPT-2 and GPT-3, the manifesto explores questions of consciousness and subjective experience; the entanglement of body and world; the internet as a network of human minds; how technology and algorithms shape what we see and believe; and how we might build new rituals, stories, economies and forms of collective life based on cooperation rather than domination.

Critters

Selection of Tentacular Critters

Verses

Selection of Verses

Series

More works in the Distributed Consciousness series.

Selected Exhibitions, Performances & Presentations(4 / 4)

Only selected shows with project pages are listed below. For more complete exhibition and performance history please see Show History.

Words(3 / 3)

The artist’s own writing about this work.

Press(25 / 25)

Articles, reviews and other press relating to this work.

Interviews(4 / 4)

Features(2 / 2)

Books(5 / 5)

Other Coverage(4 / 4)

News(5 / 5)

Academic Papers(5 / 5)

Show History(7 / 7)

Solo Exhibitions and Presentations(2 / 2)

  • 2024  Gallery QI, La Jolla, CA, USA, 25 Jan 2024
  • 2023  ACMI, Melbourne, Australia, 16 Jun 2023–31 Jul 2024

Group Exhibitions(5 / 5)

  • 2023  Crypto, Art and Climate, RIXC Art Science Festival, Riga, Latvia
  • 2022  Not About Money: Landing Meta, Sea World Culture and Arts Center, Shenzhen, China, 13 Nov 2022–5 Mar 2023
  • 2022  SonarMàtica, Sónar+D, Barcelona, Spain, 16 Jun 2022
  • 2022  Electric Dreams, 1st Computational Media and Arts Annual Symposium & Exhibition, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology · online
  • 2022  Proof of People, Fabric, London, UK