TABOO - TRANSGRESSION - TRANSCENDENCE

Advancements in AI-assisted language models have spurred efforts to decode animal communication, providing potential to bridge the gap between humans and nonhuman animals. However, questions raised by philosopher Thomas Nagel persist: can we truly understand another species without sharing their biological and sensory structures? Human senses, constrained by our bodies, limit our understanding of lifeworlds beyond our own. The nature of beings who perceive their environment in ways inaccessible to humans remains beyond human comprehension.

This project seeks to address this “anthropocentric bias” created by cognitive and sensory limitations by embracing our inherent anthropocentric perspective and applying empathy to inter-species communication. Connecting autopoietic enactivism with biosemiotics, it proposes an enactive biosemiotic domain that applies empathy to transcend linguistic barriers, emphasizing reciprocal, affective dynamics and mutual influence.

To illustrate the enactive biosemiotic domain, the installation "Echoes of Light: A Conversation with Corals" offers an immersive experience exploring the empathetic relationship between corals and their symbiotic algae. Inspired by bleaching corals’ attempts to shield their symbiotic partners from climate crises through bright neon pigments driving optical feedback loops (Bollati et al., 2020), the project invites visitors into an interactive holographic installation using Large Language Models and the Pepper’s Ghost technique. Movement sensors capture visitors' bodily movements, analyzed by an algorithm to interpret emotional states. This data informs changes in the hologram, which depicts coral-like structures shifting in geometry, color, and light intensity to reflect and influence visitors’ emotions.

While anthropocentric perspectives shape our understanding of nonhuman experiences, this project emphasizes that shared sensory and emotional interactions can indeed provide opportunities to facilitate meaningful connections, bridging perceptual divides and transcending human-centric modes of communication.