Hacking Heuristics
In collaboration with Marcel de Jeu & Jos van der Geest (Department of Neuroscience, Erasmus MC)
Hacking Heuristics
In collaboration with Marcel de Jeu & Jos van der Geest (Department of Neuroscience, Erasmus MC)
Hacking Heuristics will, in collaboration with an intelligent machine, research, learn, and ultimately create an experience of a ‘new’ form of embodied language which explores a more intuitive, non-anthropocentric way of sensing and communicating with the world.
By training a deep neural network to translate subconscious neurobiological responses into physical stimulations of bodies, Hacking Heuristics challenges our inherent desire for control. If an algorithm could re-introduce forgotten information back to our bodies, and consequently, create more holistic meanings in the mind, are we willing to hand over our independence?
What we think, feel, and actively experience is subconsciously curated to produce responses that increase our chances of survival. Our ability to communicate complex meanings through written and spoken language empowered our expansion of knowledge, whilst present technologies have globally connected us all. Yet our communication has remained primarily visual and verbal, dogmatising linear, symbolic thinking, while allowing the power of intuition to be denigrated. We have commodified almost all life on Earth, becoming largely detached from the diverse ecologies on the planet.
In a destabilising world, where our biggest threat to survival is ourselves, we are compelled to re-examine, and re-imagine our means of communicating and connecting with other beings. By acknowledging that our language determines the nature and quality of our thoughts and actions, it becomes clear that our communication requires more multi-disciplinary sensing and holistic awareness, in order to collectively grasp and respond to the complexities and hyperobjects that have become an intrinsic part of our life.
In collaboration with the Department of Neuroscience, Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam, Hacking Heuristics will explore a different kind of communication, tuning in to bodily sensations and subconscious responses which may have prevented human efficiency in the past, but that could now offer a more inclusive, dynamic relationship with the world.
By researching and locating information beyond the brain’s instincts, the project recruits ‘extra-neural’ resources which could teach us to focus more intently, comprehend more deeply, and create more imaginatively— to entertain ideas that would not be thinkable or expressible in the linear logic of languages used today.
According to the BAD Award jury, this project advances an ambitious goal of re-introducing forgotten or unnoticed information back into the body. 'It is intriguing how they envision this by featuring a strong and essential AI component, as well as an invitation to the audience to experience new haptic sensations and a sublime sense of surrendering control'.