2022-2023

“A bird calls, a fish surfaces, a dandelion sheds its seeds in a gust of air. However, when events stretch out across hours, days and more, we no longer readily perceive, but rely on the labelling of such events as abstract groupings we “know” to be, yet have no visible delineation.”

'Decohering Delineation' is the entanglement of neural networks and oceanic data as an experimental exploration of ways to make tangible, through the use of quantum computation and neural networks, the innate interconnected nature of ecosystems and specimens, artificial & natural. 

Neural networks normally cannot reproduce patterns outside of the data used to train them, but through the use of quantum circuits and marine data, the shifting regions of entanglement create spaces of external­­--internal influence, allowing patterns of Others to exist within them.

The work debuted officially as part of the (NL) NXT Museum's exhibition 'Realtime', curated by Charlotte Kent and Jesse Damiani, with a sound by composer Robert M. Thomas.

above: diagram of how using marine data as a driving influence, multiple neural networks are entangled through quantum computing, producing an entangled output.

The temporal limits of our perception in interaction with the more-than-human contexts, that we are but a small part of, arguably reinforce our tendency to treat each perceptible moment and event as a discrete unit: a bird calls, a fish surfaces, a dandelion sheds its seeds in a gust of air. However, when events stretch out across hours, days and more, we no longer readily perceive, but rely on the labelling of such events as abstract groupings we “know” to be, yet have no visible delineation.

Perhaps, if we tell alternative stories of our perceptions, there are ways to see how abandoning the idea of discrete units opens new, crucial ways of reimagining ourselves as part of the more-than-human. That we can strive to experience, for example, how a bird's flight is simultaneously weather and season, or ourselves simultaneously as an extension of coral reefs and oceanic currents.

Here, through entangling the process of inference, or output, of neural networks with oceanic data, an intertwining of temporal scales, events, and specimens emerges as a tentative experiment. The normally separate neural networks and their outputs become visibly entangled through the inextricable influence of data of varying temporal scales. These entangled points become an experimental scrying aid, one attempting to unveil how digital spaces and artificial lifeforms are an equally entangled part of the same more-than-human ecosystems that surround us.

exhibited:

2024 'UMWELT' at the FMAV Modena (IT) (link)
2023 'Realtime' at the NXT Museum (NL) (link)
2022 Beijing Art and Technology Biennale (CN) (link)

written word:

'Landscapes for LilyPads' (archive.org), exhibition essay by co-curator Charlotte Kent.

special thanks:

Robert M. Thomas
Stefano Rosso
Jesse Damiani
Charlotte Kent
NXT Museum