about

iscri (InterSpecies Communication Research Initiative) was a project to design an AI model that could communicate with an octopus; or, more accurately, an AI that used visual artworks to invite an octopus to respond. In this, the project reimagines ideas about interspecies communication, inspired by the highly evolved visuality and curiosity of the octopus and the notion that communication goes far beyond human language, whether written or spoken. Communication is, after all, an exchange between two or more actors.

How might an AI prompt this visual animal to respond? Could we initiate communication through artworks made for and in collaboration with an octopus? What might this mean for human audiences?

It was hoped that an AI model that had been trained on an octopus in its ocean environment could then respond to an audience in an immersive art space, whether a gaming, gallery or AR/XR environment, as if they were the octopus. The AI would make moves and responses in these contexts in an outsider, or alien-to-human, way.

iscri’s origins date back to the mid-1990s and the art of Maggie Roberts and Ranu Mukherjee, who first formed their collective practice 0rphan Drift (0D) in 1994. They have been engaging with questions of machinic intelligence and visual cognition in their collective artwork for nearly thirty years, a timeline that tracks the societal transformations of an increasingly pervasive cyberspace. Roberts' focus on the octopus - “a very curious animal" - comes from a long engagement with the species. 0D's exhibition 'If Al were Cephalopod’ (2019) at Telematic Gallery, San Francisco (where 0D was imagining alternative, more sensuous and embodied possibilities for intelligence), led directly to ISCRI, with Maggie posing 0D's question “What if AI were cephalopod?” to AI consultancy Etic Lab.

Etic Lab is a Wales-based digital research and design partnership that prototypes and develops new digital technologies to address complex problems, including different kinds of Machine Learning models. They build these systems from the ground up, taking a whole-systems approach that has evolved out of the cybernetic thought of Gregory Bateson and the systems philosophy of biologists Maturana and Varela. That is to say, Etic Lab’s methodology is underpinned by an ecological understanding of technical systems as complex networks that are embedded in interconnected socio-cultural-economic-political and environmental ecosystems. Maturana and Varela’s concept of autopoiesis that was so significant for Felix Guattari’s ecological philosophy became central to iscri’s design philosophy.

0D’s fascination with exploring perception expanding beyond human legibility, combined with Etic Lab’s whole-systems approach, sparked the idea of a conversation between nonhuman entities, an octopus and Al, where the AI learns to behave like an octopus. Given the complexity of the philosophical, artistic and technical undertaking, a collective working group with cross-disciplinary expertise was necessary. 0D and Etic Lab came together to form a collaboration of already collaborative teams, each unit bringing its own capabilities and expertise. The iscri project was initiated in 2018, acquiring its name and project focus the following year (see Timeline below).

The research took place against a backdrop of renewed interest in the intellectual lives and possibilities of nonhuman (or to use posthumanist philosopher Karen Barad's term, more-than-human) entities: animals and machines and specifically the octopus. This animal, which has neurons distributed throughout their body, with [human-]brain-like neuronal intensities in their arms as well as a central brain, offers a particular challenge to the Cartesian mind-body divide. Their sophisticated vision overlaps with and goes beyond human vision: they have human-like eyes (they are similar, but not the same) that have evolved convergently within a very different kind of environment; they can detect light and colour through their skin and also detect with the suckers on their arms that might be analogous – in human terms – to tongue-fingers that can also smell and sense light. The octopus helps to think through ideas about intelligence and cognition beyond the narrow frame of the human. Their distributed cognition, with arms that have a far greater degree of autonomy than human arms, is significant in the context of recent thought about distributed intelligence and what we understand intelligence to be. That is, the idea that intelligence and thought occur not only in the (human) brain, but throughout the body and the environment.

At the same time, the use of Machine Learning for understanding animal communication is becoming more widespread; for example, in attempts to decode the sonic exchanges of whales. So far, however, these capabilities have been employed primarily as a way of interpreting, rather than facilitating a conversation with nonhumans – which was iscri’s aim. How we went about this, over the course of five years, through researching octopus visual cognition, engaging with philosophical ideas and prototyping artworks, is what we hope unfolds across this website that archives the project, through numerous videos of talks and and presentations, methodology templates developed through intensive discussions with The Creative AI Lab team, speculative texts and experimental 3D imagery and animation prototypes.


The iscri Team

0rphan Drift (0D)

Maggie Roberts: Lead Artist
Ranu Mukherjee: 0D Co-founder
Megan Bagshaw: VFX supervisor
Duncan Paterson: Computational Artist
George Simms: Computational Artist

Etic Lab (EL)

Dr Stephanie Cussans Moran: Research Lead
      (EL and Transtechnology Research)
Dr Kevin Hogan: Chief Cognitive Architect
Alexander Hogan: AI Technical Lead
Beth Barker-Paton: Creative Producer
Casper Drake: AI developer
Chris Tilt: graphics design

 

iscri Partners

Eva Jäger: Co-founder, Creative AI Lab, Serpentine gallery and Kings College London
Alasdair Milne: PhD collaborator, Creative AI Lab, Kings College London
Anna Breytenbach: Interspecies Communicator specialising in wild animal communication
James Loudon: underwater cameraman, Varuna Films, BBC Blue Planet

  

Discussants and Supporters

    



iscri Timeline

Prehistory

Cyberfeminist hivemind 0rphan Drift (0D) have been investigating the alien aesthetics of machine vision and nonhuman perception since the 90s and have long had a fascination for octopuses. 0D core members Maggie Roberts and Ranu Mukherjee develop various octopus/AI projects, culminating in a speculative multimedia art installation, If AI were Cephalopod (2019), which is exhibited internationally.

Stephanie Cussans Moran begins a PhD investigating other animals’ sensory perception from an ecological psychological perspective, and at the same time joins digital research and design consultancy Etic Lab. Etic Lab Partners Dr Kevin Hogan and Alex Hogan between them have expertise in cognitive neuroscience, commercial tech development and data science. They have been designing and building machine learning models based on the latest academic and industry research.

2018

Maggie approaches Etic Lab to discuss 0rphan Drift’s ongoing speculative work around AI and octopuses, with the idea of developing real octopus AI technology. She has several meetings at Etic Lab HQ in the depths of Wales with Stephanie, Alex and Kevin, and we begin collaborating on an artistic project involving cutting edge Machine Learning.

During our in-depth philosophical and technical discussions, 0rphan Drift's initial research question about how might we develop a cephalopod AI is replaced by the question of how we might communicate with an octopus. This is informed by Etic Lab's Machine Learning development philosophy based on a whole-systems approach - after the biologists Maturana and Varela and Gregory Bateson - and on ecological thought about co-evolution and ecological interconnectedness. We embark together on a programme of research into octopus visual cognition and behaviour, with the initial aim of developing an octopus AI for a new exhibition.

2019

Still developing the concept, Maggie organises a public programme session with Goldsmiths University’s Visual Cultures Department. Maggie, Stephanie and Kevin deliver a collaborative presentation, ‘Kraken?’, hosted by Digital Cultures researcher Dr Ramon Amaro. The talks explore a new idea about trying to communicate with an octopus through AI, using visual artworks to engage this highly visual and curious animal, rather than trying to emulate its cognitive architecture or cognitive behaviour.

The ‘Kraken?’ discussions lead to a new project name of ISCRI (Interspecies Communication Research Initiative). The Etic Lab team design a project architecture, producing radically, philosophically innovative Machine Learning (ML) environment diagrams based on our conversations and the whole-systems approach, using a form of ML called Reinforcement Learning. Between the newly formed ISCRI team, we develop a comprehensive pitch document to send to potential academic, art institution and industry partners.

0rphan Drift prototype visual material including animation in 3D software Blender and computational arts experiments (generated for Maggie’s ‘Becoming Octopus Meditations’ 2020 commission), working with Blender expert Megan Bagshaw, and computational artists George Simms and Duncan Paterson.

Maggie starts working with animal communicator Anna Breytenbach and swims with octopuses in Cape Town’s coastal kelp forests. This work adds significant experiential knowledge to the marine biology desk research.

Stephanie is introduced to Nora Bateson (one of Gregory Bateson’s daughters) and The Bateson Idea Group through a colleague at the ecological journal she art edits. Gregory Bateson’s pioneering ecological systems and cybernetics research is a huge influence for Etic Lab, so we are excited when they want to meet and chat about ISCRI. We chat with Nora, Phillip Guddemi and Stephen Nachmanovitch from the organisation, who relate anecdotes about Gregory Bateson’s work with octopuses (some of which are now published in Guddemi’s monograph, ‘Gregory Bateson on Relational Communication: From Octopuses to Nations,’ 2020) and refuting B. F. Skinner’s behaviourist theory. They are intrigued by our project and its philosophical basis in whole systems. This conversation helps to shape our thinking on the holistic nature of the project, and to think about its implications.

Stephen Nachmanovitch says about iscri, in an email afterwards:
“AI has mostly been used to attempt to model a cutout caricature of Aristotelian-Newtonian “man”. But if it (still imperfectly) is used to model cephalopods, we might learn something quite new. The issue is how to get away from digitally defined methods and rules and get to the analog reality of living organisms.”

0rphan Drift start a conversation with the Serpentine Gallery’s Art Technologies curator, Kay Watson, and she recommends that their R+D platform, The Creative AI Lab, take a look at iscri.

2020

iscri is partnered by the Serpentine and King’s College Creative AI Lab, working closely with the Serpentine’s Eva Jäger and Alasdair Milne.

iscri hold monthly meetings during the long Covid lockdowns period, both internally and with the Creative AI Lab team, to discuss the project progress, philosophical development and challenges. We still envision the final output as an art gallery experience, although we are beginning to think about more potentially inclusive mediums such as gaming and VR.

Stephanie and Maggie seek the advice of marine biology experts Stazione Zoologica Napoli and the Marine Biological Association, Plymouth (where Stephanie is a member) on ethical ocean mesocosm building. Kevin approaches Aberystwyth University Computer Scientist Dr Otar Akanyeti and Reader in Intelligent Robotics Dr Dimitris Tsakiris, who is researching robotics in marine environments. They agree to partner on the data collecting phase of the project.

2021

The iscri team speak about the project on many public, art, AI technology, academic and marine biology platforms. Introducing the project in different disciplinary contexts and meet experts in various fields reflects the multi-disciplinary concerns embedded in the project. Highlights include:

Stephanie and Kevin are interviewed by Guy J. Baker, editor of the Marine Biological Association UK's magazine The Marine Biologist, on their Youtube channel as part of the Marine Biologist Deep Dive series.

Maggie and Stephanie speak on a panel at the ‘Mutation’ themed FIBER Festival in Amsterdam, ‘Strange Relations: Exploring Interspecies Communication through AI and the Arts’ with Špela Petrič.

Stephanie and Maggie present the project at Art Machines 2,  International Symposium on Machine Learning and Art 2021, Hong Kong, as part of the panel Interspecies Research and Becoming Animal.

Maggie is invited to speak on a panel with Tobias Rees (Transformation of the Human School, C.A.) at ‘Hybrid Futures Lab’, Digital Innovations Season, University of the Arts, London.

In addition, we are invited to contribute collaborative articles and texts to journals such as Ecocene and the Marine Biological Association UK magazine (on the read page of this website).

We have some conversations with members of the Interspecies Internet group, who are interested in interspecies communication. We speak with marine biologist Diana Reiss and send her our pitch, but she does not engage further when she realises we are applying for the same US grant (the Templeton Foundation) for very similar interspecies communication projects.

We have a meeting with group member Alan Gershenfeld, co-founder of e-line media, who recently produced an underwater video game called ‘Beyond Blue’ inspired by the BBC’s Blue Planet series. He is interested but we are at too early a stage. He introduces us to Experimental Design who produce immersive environments – and who did the worldbuilding for the Hollywood film ‘Minority Report’, which coincidentally featured some video artwork by 0rphan Drift. But we still don’t have the money to make anything new.

Serpentine Gallery Creative AI Lab’s Alasdair Milne writes an essay about the ISCRI project for the Serpentine website.

The Creative AI Lab’s Eva Jäger organises a meeting with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Director of the Serpentine Gallery, which is on Zoom for logistical reasons (lockdowns, Maggie in South Africa, Ranu in San Francisco, HUO’s full diary and travel itinerary…). We deliver a pitch for a gallery exhibition, having worked through some key conceptual and philosophical issues and ways to talk about the audience experience of the ISCRI Octopus-AI in a gallery context. These are expressed in the ‘Encounter’ and ‘Meaning’ diagrams we produced for the pitch.

The public talks culminate with Maggie’s Serpentine Gallery’s Twitch TV event, Serpentine Twitch TV event ‘A Cephalopod-Machine Encounter’, Maggie Roberts of 0rphan Drift and Serpentine Arts Technologies in conversation.

We decide to stop doing talks and focus on looking for the major funding needed. We have already assembled an impressive list of supporters, institutions and colleagues who would engage with the project once funded. We have also reached a hard limit to progress without funding – we have visual and tactile prototypes, but creating a new AI in collaboration with an octopus and octopus experts will be expensive and time-consuming.

Beth Barker-Paton joins the team, bringing her expertise in creative production from a career in arts programming and consulting.

2022

The funding drive begins in earnest. We need substantial funding to realise iscri beyond prototyping stages, which significantly influences our directed expansion into more commercial and industry-based fields. We work on pitches targeting specific industries – the immersive creative industries, including gaming and VR platforms, deep space and underwater communication industries, cutting edge machine Learning and AI Technology Innovation grant bodies, as well as the initial public art institutions.

We submit grant applications and sponsorship pitches to selected bodies across the fields of art, technology, interspecies communication and ecology. We also start approaching AI VC investors with a pitch to raise commercial investment, but it is the wrong time for all of us to devote ourselves full-time to spinning out a VC-invested business product (often an app), with other art and research commitments.

We assemble a showreel of 0rphan Drift’s ongoing 3D animation and computational arts experiments, some generated for Maggie’s popular ‘Becoming Octopus Meditations’ [commissioned by IMT Gallery, London, during lockdown]. We apply to Unreal Engine’s innovative gaming fund - and get so close!

2023

We take a break while Stephanie completes her PhD, focusing on human visual bias in representations of other animals. When we reconvene, we reassess potential directions ISCRI could move in, and investigate setting it up as a research institution. However, we all recognise that without significant funding both 0D and Etic Lab need to refocus on other projects.

2024

We decide – encouraged by Eva and Alasdair at the Serpentine Gallery’s Creative AI Lab – to build this website showcasing the project and to establish it as a key catalysing force in the now proliferating AI interspecies experiments by groups such as interspecies.io, and many high visibility technology-driven artists.