Interspecies Co-Creation
Jiabao Li |
TEDxBoston
• November 2022
Human-centric thinking has caused irreversible environmental disasters and numerous species to become extinct. As the Anthropocene rampages, our challenge is to shift our perspectives from human-centered, ego-centric, profit-driven industrialist thinking to a transpecies, eco-centric world view.
New scientific research enables humans to understand more deeply non-human species (animals, plants, fungi, artificial intelligence). Many of our preconceived notions about our human exceptionalism are being challenged – animals have language, use tools, express emotions, learn from each other, show love to other species, and act in selfless and socially-minded ways. In addition, there are numerous types of intelligence beyond human intelligence, such as distributed intelligence of octopuses, swarm intelligence of ants, bees, and birds, collective intelligence of mycelium, and microbial intelligence. Co-design with non-human species helps us probe into different intelligences, shift perspectives, and interrogate ourselves.
I explore ""Interspecies World Sharing"", where for a brief moment a human and another species acknowledge and honor each other's unique worlds and share the world through the act of art creation. Today I have three meditations on how nature experiences human phenomena: Squid Map, Chthulucene, and Once a Glacier."
Animals, Art, Climate Change, Creativity, Data, Ecology, Environment, Glacier, Virtual Reality