Staged as a place of ritual and worship, “Distributed Consciousness” is a speculative reimagining of a new set of mythologies and deities that guide us towards a decentering of human exceptionalism.

Drawing upon the collaborative nature of knowledge building, the collective nature of intelligence, and the permeable and dynamic boundaries between individuals, “Distributed Consciousness” employs cephalopods and cephalopod cognition as a means of reflecting upon the increasingly powerful and pervasive synthetic alien intelligences we are building in the form of Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially those trained on our collective consciousness scraped from the internet.

As we face the challenges of the climate crisis and ecological devastation fueled by anthropocentric, extractivist ideologies, the work invites us to let go of the destructive dichotomy of “Man vs Nature”, and instead embrace the interconnectedness of all human, non-human, living and nonliving things across manifold scales of time and space, and actively work towards multi- species flourishing.

Distributed Consciousness was originally developed in 2021, as an NFT collection and a series of site specific installations. Here it is being shown in a new format specific to Gallery QI.

Memo Akten is a multi-disciplinary artist, musician, and researcher creating Speculative Simulations and Data Dramatizations investigating the intricacies of human-machine entanglements. His work explores perception and states of consciousness; the tensions between ecology, technology, science and spirituality; and for more than a decade he’s been working with Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and our Collective Consciousness as scraped by the Internet,

to reflect on the human condition. He writes code and uses algorithmic / data-driven design and aesthetics to create moving images, sounds, large-scale responsive installations and performances. He holds a PhD from Goldsmiths University of London, specializing in artistic and creative applications of Artificial Intelligence, and he is currently Assistant Professor of Computational Art at University of California San Diego (UCSD).

Akten has received numerous awards including the prestigous Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica. His work has been widely exhibited and performed internationally at venues such as The Grand Palais, The Barbican, The Royal Opera House, ZKM Center for Art and Media, Sonar Festival, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai Ming Contemporary Art Museum and many others. He has been featured in major publications such as Wired, The Guardian, Dazed, Nowness,
The Financial Times, and he has collaborated with celebrities such as Lenny Kravitz, U2, Depeche Mode and Professor Richard Dawkins. He has served as mentor and jury on numerous international awards, residencies and conferences such as SIGGRAPH, Ars Electronica, and Google Arts and Culture.