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Technoculture : Culture as Living TechnologyA research-driven practice, expanding the science of information and developing products, platforms & systems through the living technolgoy of culture.
Technoculture : Self-Synth
The latest look at our Identity As a Software System
Throughout history, humans have used the tools available to them to imagine new versions of themselves in attempts to tell stories, maintain tradition, feel closer to nature, and transcend their own limitations. Can a piece of technology help you envision and become a truer version of yourself? With technology, we’re able to extend the boundaries of our minds, push past the limitations of our bodies, and see reflections of our individuality in the natural world around us.
Let’s imagine a new way to look at what it means to be human.
A Second Look : Frame.io
XR RADIO
Advancing research into the potential benefits and risks of a fully mixed-reality world.“In an augmented reality…Any person will be able to manipulate reality and influence consciousness. Anyone will be able to place three-dimensional digital objects in the physical world which will be difficult or impossible to distinguish from the real thing.
There’s no doubt that augmented reality has the potential to improve our lives immeasurably. Still, its development is far outpacing the thought of how it should be used: who will have access to the technology? How should we design digital objects to fit into the physical world? Are companies allowed to use our data to create a personalized augmented environment for us? How do you prevent wrongdoers from manipulating us? How do you teach people to differentiate between the digital and the physical?
These questions are more than just philosophy fun-time.
Thinking about them is crucial to our lives.”
Source: Guineafowl Lab, Medium
Information: The Prima MateriaThe foundation of my research and the fundamental substrate of our reality, worlds & practice.
In information theory, the entropy S of a random variable X quantifies the average level of uncertainty or information associated with the variable’s potential states or possible outcomes. This measures the expected amount of information needed to describe the state of the variable, considering the distribution of probabilities across all potential states. Mathematically speaking, given a discrete random variable X, which may be any member x within the set X and is distributed according to p : X → [0, 1], the entropy S(X) := −Σx∈X p(x) log p(x), (1) where Σ denotes the sum over the variable’s possible values. An equivalent definition of entropy is the expected value of the self-information of a variable.
Claude Shannon's 1948 paper, A Mathematical Theory of Communication, provides a mathematical framework for sending information, defining communication as a process with a source, transmitter, channel, receiver, and destination, incorporating crucial concepts like information entropy (surprise), channel capacity, and the role of noise to enable efficient data transmission, compression, and error correction, laying the foundation for digital communication.
“Communicaiton” (2013)
'Communication', the third installment in a micro-film series called Pandrogeny.
Original Concept: Branden Collins
Direction: Branden Collins
DP: Brian Smith
Choreography/Costume Design: Branden Collins & Madeline Moore
Music: Omar Ferrer
Though you likely didn’t realize it, Shannon’s ideas on information theory are what have made those dancing GIFs on your computer screen a possibility.
At the ripe old age of 32, Shannon wrote about this concept in a 1948 paper entitled “A Mathematical Theory of Communication.” For the first time ever, he explored the idea of quantifying the previously qualitative concept of communication, transforming it from nebulous to numerical. Shannon did this by connecting the well-established measures of probability (statistics) and entropy (thermodynamics) to a new measure of communication, called information. Once Shannon connected these dots mathematically, it opened the door to signal processing, compression, and converting messages into code to transmit them digitally. To apply this new science, however, he needed a unit. Which brings us to…bits.
2. He invented the concept of bits
The concept of 0’s and 1’s have long been ingrained into contemporary pop culture (Bender from Futurama, anyone?), but binary digits (or “bits”) were a revolutionary idea in the 1940’s. In his paper, “A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits,” Shannon coined the term “bits” by showing how two “truth values” could symbolize logic with the binary values of 0 and 1. With this came the idea that information could be transmitted without error once it became digital.
Shannon was thinking that media — like photography — could be encoded into a universal language while people were still getting their news from ink printed on broadsheet paper. Like a domino effect of brilliant proportions, Shannon’s radical ideas created the building blocks for the smallest unit of data in a computer, which in turn paved the way for information storage and the proliferation of technological advances we have seen since.
3. He laid the foundation for digital computer design theory
Just as one cannot swim out of water, one cannot program without a computer. In the midst of WWII, Shannon joined Bell Labs to advance the fields of cryptography and fire-control systems. During his time there, he mathematically proved that any digital function could be systematically built as an arrangement of electromechanical relays. His findings were later used as the foundation for digital circuit design and — drumroll, please — electronic digital computers. The computers on our desks and in our pockets today still use the exact same ideas, only instead of large electromechanical relays, they use microscopic semi-conducting transistors. (Which were also invented at Bell Labs!)
Shannon even co-invented the first wearable computer in the 60’s with Edward Thorp, a concept that is still taking form in projects like Google Glass, Oculus Rift, and most recently the Apple Watch.
Without Shannon’s equation and its umbrella of uses, life as we know it would not be the same today. His ideas not only pushed forward the development of the internet, but also numerous technologies like ZIP files and sending the Voyager into deep space — and those are just a few choice examples. It’s hard to know how long and far Shannon’s impact will reach, but we are certain for one thing — his invention of a chess machine that made wry commentary as it played was also pretty ahead of its time.
Many criticisms of the Shannon–Weaver model focus on its simplicity by pointing out that it leaves out vital aspects of communication. In this regard, it has been characterized as "inappropriate for analyzing social processes"[16] and as a "misleading misrepresentation of the nature of human communication". A common objection is based on the fact that it is a linear transmission model: it conceptualizes communication as a one-way process going from a source to a destination. Against this approach, it is argued that communication is usually more interactive with messages and feedback going back and forth between the participants. This approach is implemented by non-linear transmission models, also termed interaction models.[18][3][19] They include Wilbur Schramm's model, Frank Dance's helical-spiral model, a circular model developed by Lee Thayer, and the "sawtooth" model due to Paul Watzlawick, Janet Beavin, and Don Jackson. These approaches emphasize the dynamic nature of communication by showing how the process evolves as a multi-directional exchange of messages. Another criticism focuses on the fact that Shannon and Weaver understand the message as a form of preexisting information. I. A. Richards criticizes this approach for treating the message as a preestablished entity that is merely packaged by the transmitter and later unpackaged by the receiver. This outlook is characteristic of all transmission models. They contrast with constitutive models,[18] which see meanings as "reflexively constructed, maintained, or negotiated in the act of communicating". Richards argues that the message does not exist before it is articulated. This means that the encoding is itself a creative process that creates the content. Before it, there is a need to articulate oneself but no precise pre-existing content. The communicative process may not just affect the meaning of the message but also the social identities of the communicators, which are established and modified in the ongoing communicative process.
- Wikipedia
Information, Identity & the probability of possible worlds.
"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near
certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops."
certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops."
- Steven Jay Gould
An abbridged example of personal identity mapping.
Our identities are relative.
“Our identity is fictional, written by parents, relatives, education, society.”
- Genesis P-Orridge
“To be Black is already to occupy an alternate reality: you are forced to accept as fact that which is not,
by any accounts, real, but which still shapes your life in undeniably real ways.”
by any accounts, real, but which still shapes your life in undeniably real ways.”
Blackness as Concept : Zero Ontology & The Quantum Vacuum
Blackness, our point of origin.
Expanding on Blackness as a concept within and beyond its association with race. We explore the implications of Blackness considered more broadly as an abstract object (Mathematical Platonism), an infinite set, and its entanglements with matter and meaning through space and time. We confront the existential (sur)reality of global anti-blackness and the boundless depths of Black transcendence. In a universe woven from meaning, Black lives matter. A mathematical object is an abstract concept arising in mathematics. Typically, a mathematical object can be a value that can be assigned to a symbol, and therefore can be involved in formulas. Commonly encountered mathematical objects include numbers, expressions, shapes, functions, and sets. Mathematical objects can be very complex; for example, theorems, proofs, and even formal theories are considered as mathematical objects in proof theory.
This "Zero ontology", an interpretation of the void which treats it as the summation of all substantial reality (or vice versa - an interpretation of substantial reality in terms of the void), appears as either unintelligible or highly counter-intuitive from the perspective of our everyday worldview. We are used to dealing with substantial things, and we tend to think of 0, or the void, as the absence of things rather than their ultimate "summation". But this may be a problem of language rather than intelligibility. We do not have the right terms at present to describe the great totality of the world, considered as a single unit when all of its properties are taken into account. Such an entity is beyond our experience, and certainly beyond our powers of manipulation. When modern physics tells us that the ultimate value of the conserved constants of the physical universe is exactly zero, or as Pearce puts it: "In the Universe as a whole, the conserved constants (electric charge, angular momentum, mass-energy) add up to/cancel out to exactly 0. There isn't any net electric charge or angular momentum. The world's positive mass-energy is exactly cancelled out by its negative gravitational potential energy. (Provocatively, cryptically, elliptically, "nothing" exists)".
- The Zero Ontology - David Pearce on Why Anything Exists
- The Zero Ontology - David Pearce on Why Anything Exists
In quantum physics, the zero-point energy of the vacuum is more than an ongoing challenge, and it’s more than the reason you can’t ever truly empty a box.
Instead of being something where there should be nothing, it is nothing infused with the potential to be anything.
Instead of being something where there should be nothing, it is nothing infused with the potential to be anything.
“The interesting thing about the vacuum is every field, and therefore every particle, is somehow represented,” Physicist Peter Milonni said.
Even if not a single electron is present, the vacuum contains “electronness.” The zero-point energy of the vacuum is the combined effect of every possible form of matter, including ones we have yet to discover.
Another World is Possible :
Simulating a Universal Quantum SystemIdentity, Information and the Probability of Possible Worlds : A Social Relativity Theory of Quantum Gravity
Possible worlds and modal reasoning have made "counterfactual" arguments extremely popular in current philosophy.
Possible worlds, especially the idea of "nearby worlds" that differ only slightly from the actual world, are used to examine
the validity of modal notions such as necessity and contingency, possibility and impossibility, truth and falsity.
Scientists use models to represent and explain the world, and to make predictions.
Models can be physical objects, diagrams, equations, or computer programs.
Information can quantify the information in different possible worlds
and thus establish the relative possibilities or "information distance" from our actual world.
Simulating a Universal Quantum System
Identity, Information and the Probability of Possible Worlds : A Social Relativity Theory of Quantum Gravity
Possible worlds and modal reasoning have made "counterfactual" arguments extremely popular in current philosophy.
Possible worlds, especially the idea of "nearby worlds" that differ only slightly from the actual world, are used to examine
the validity of modal notions such as necessity and contingency, possibility and impossibility, truth and falsity.
Scientists use models to represent and explain the world, and to make predictions.
Models can be physical objects, diagrams, equations, or computer programs.
Information can quantify the information in different possible worlds
and thus establish the relative possibilities or "information distance" from our actual world.
The Another World is Possible experience also functioned as a kind-of room-scaled , modern update to the famous EPR thought experiment. A kind of mathematical, computational playground which leverages the fluid dynamics & networked structures of social relativity to demonstrate a new approach to simulating a quantum system and explore the very foundations of quantum computation & integrated information theory.
In the original conception of the thought experiment, two particles, Alice and Bob, are entangled then split and sent down two different paths.
According to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, we can only know either the positon or momentum of a particle upon measurement, not both. The EPR experiment seemed to show that once the state (either position or momentu) of on particle (Alice) was measured, we can instantly know the state of the other (Bob). This implied that it was possible that information could travel faster than light, something that deeply troubled Einstein about this result. This was the phenomenon of entanglement, that he called “spooky action at a distance”. Retrocausality is a concept often explored in quantum physics that exploits entanglement (the “spooky action”) to explain phenomena like time-symmetric systems and delayed choice experiments where a future measurement seems to affect a particle's past behavior. While it remains a theoretical idea, it suggests that at fundamental levels, the universe might not operate strictly forward in time, leading to discussions about time, free will, and reality itself.
Another contemporary take on the original EPR experiment.
Example of a modern EPR paradox in higher dimensions, showing correlations of a photon in both momentum and position. Source: Imaging with Quantum States of Light
P.-A. Moreau , E. Toninelli, T. Gregory and M. J. Padgett
SUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ
2025 marked 100 years since the establishment of modern quantum mechanics, a revolution in physics that began with breakthroughs by Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, and Erwin Schrödinger around 1925, leading to a profound new understanding of the atomic world, the "first quantum revolution" of technologies like lasers and transistors, and ongoing "second quantum revolution" with quantum computing and cryptography. Since the original conception of the EPR thought experiment, many new kinds of iterations of the experiment have been performed, confirming that entanglement, or “spooky action at a distance” as Einstein called it, is real. Two particles that are correlated share states instantly across any distance. There is still some debate as to whether information in this domain can travel faster than light, though as recently as 2013, the speed of entanglement itself has been measured as traveling at least four orders of magnitude faster than light. In 2017, Chinese scientists used the Micius satellite to perform quantum teleportation and entanglement distribution over 1,200 km, proving the feasibility of global quantum communication networks.
The connection between the second law of thermodynamics and information was first explored in the 19th century by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell. Maxwell famously invented a thought experiment about an all-knowing demon that is still yielding insights today. The thought experiment shows an entity using information to seemingly violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics by sorting particles to create order (decrease entropy). Recent experiments connecting the Maxwell’s Demon concept with the thermodynamics of quantum systems have shown that a heat engine could be driven purely by quantum mechanical information. In essence, Maxwell's demon in the quantum realm highlights that information isn't just abstract; it's a physical entity with thermodynamic consequences, especially when dealing with quantum states, paving the way for new quantum technologies. The relationship between Maxwell's demon and general relativity (GR) or quantum gravity (QG) in theoretical physics focuses on the role of the observer and has established that information is a physical quantity that dictates the evolution of spacetime and thermodynamic laws.
“You have to explicitly include the observer who is measuring things as
part of the discussion of the system... Nobody can measure a closed universe from
the outside, you can only measure it from the inside.”
- Physicist Daniel Harlow, MIT
Another World is Possible : Simulating a Universal Quantum System
Identity, Information and the Probability of Possible Worlds : A Social Relativity Theory of Quantum Gravity
We have created a room-scale many-bodied quantum system, with each visitor behaving as individual entangled topological Qubits. The turbulent, chaotic nature of social dynamics in our closed environment act as insulators for the encoded information in each Qubit state vector as they enter and exit a series of gates. This, in essence, mirrors the conditions of the quantum vacuum, with fluctuations that result in an emergent spacetime fabric. Our quantum computer is a model of the universe as a single quantum system. The state vectors are therefore encrypted via quantum entanglement as each state represents a random number generated within a hyperdimensional matrix of the exploration space. The deltas between state vector phase transitions represent combinatorial “uniqueness”, therefore generating unique informational structures in this distributed system. This shows the potential for exponential computational power from quantum behaviors exhibited by the distributed, chaotic and entangled nature of social network dynamics through currently available sensor technology.
Experiment Design by: Branden Collins, ZOO AS ZOO, Sienna Brown, My T. Nguyen, Mario Fernando, Austin Presley, Sonali Gupta, Vivian Chavez, The Bardo, The Goat Farm Arts Center, Derek Holguin, Ellex Swavoni, Abi Lambert, Lyly Hoang, Alisa Khieu, Anand Pal
“The establishment of our new Government seemed to be the last great experiment for
promoting human happiness, by reasonable compact, in civil Society.”
- George Washington, President and owner of enslaved peoples. 244 years ago, the “great” American experiment began.
promoting human happiness, by reasonable compact, in civil Society.”
- George Washington, President and owner of enslaved peoples. 244 years ago, the “great” American experiment began.
Are we fated to exist in an infinite loop of oppression, extraction and inequality or is it possible to create a protopian
world free from unnecessary hunger, poverty, homelessness, warfare, ecological degeneration, unwanted disease and coercive labor?
world free from unnecessary hunger, poverty, homelessness, warfare, ecological degeneration, unwanted disease and coercive labor?
“The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Outcomes
Another World is Possible
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model thatmakes the existing model obsolete.”
― Buckminster Fuller
Everything (2019)
Another World is Possible debut at SITE, an annual arts, technology & cultre festival at The Goat Farm Arts Center, Atlanta, GA.
We welcomed visitors into a new reality to shape new
stories and imagine new worlds together.
stories and imagine new worlds together.
In the fall of 2024, I brought together several teams of peers and collaborators to create an experimental model that integrated years of research and development across these domeains. The culmination of a vision set out in 2019 - A new physical/digital model for collective experimentation in service of building toward shared, protopian futures. Inspired by my previous work with Snap AR, Comic-Con International, International CES (Consumer Electronics Show), Dolby Laboratories, Adult Swim, Licensing International Genies, Meta, Impossible Foods, Sight Unseen, Everytable and many more, Another World is Possible invites us to imagine a new way to bring emerging tech to the public and share vital information about technological transformations happening in the world around us. The experience was also deeply inspired by my independent research and work in information science, regenerative economics, intentional communities and social systems theory.
4 interactive vignettes
4 original games
A new single from multidisciplinary artist Ellex Swavoni
Dozens of pieces of content
An original comic book
AR experiences
Countless pages of carefully curated research
Presentations, performance
And the first functional prototype of a regenerative economic model originally conceived in 2019.
All in a playable, choose your own adventure experience.
Another World is Possible was an incredibly significant footnote for everyone involved, in a continuum of collective imagining that extends beyond our own time and space.
Infinite gratitude for all who were critical in bringing Another World is Possible to life. Learn more about this experience here.
ZOO AS ZOO
Sienna Brown
My T. Nguyen
Mario Fernando
Austin Presley
Cortney Pizzarelli
Sonali Gupta
Vivian Chavez
The Bardo
Allie Bashuk
Derek Holguin
Ellex Swavoni
Abi Lambert
Lyly Hoang
Alisa Khieu
Anand Pal
Our stories, our worlds.
I’m currently working with individuals and a newtwork of creative teams to co-create world models to
explore the potential beneficial and harmful outcomes of exponential technologies like AI, Robotics, Mixed Reality,
Spatial Computing, Biotech and more. All underpinned by deep research & historical context, delivered through immersive narratives, interactive media and storytelling where the past, present and future meet.
We’re integrating the art & science of worldbuilding.
Throughout history, there are countless examples of the feedback loop between storytelling and the evolution of technology & culture. Stories create worlds that help us imagine and simulate the complex challenges and new realities brought about by emerging technologies. They also help us put into context repeating patterns that reemerge through time. The act of creating storyworlds (storytelling + worldbuilding) continues a lineage of technologies as old as human culture itself, enabling us to imagine and create new realities together.
Worlds Under Construction...
XR Radio
Akupara
El Malo
Barton Hood
Beloved
Biosphere 3
Living Technology : Toward a New Science of Integrated Information
With the help of some of my favorite collaborators, friends, creators and minds of all kinds, I’m currently developing a Theory of Integrated Information which aims to connect the quantum and informational underpinnings of techology, culture, living systems, consciousness, time and the fundamental nature of reality. At its heart, a reclamation of both our embodied and immaterial ways of knowing the world. A reclamation that points to a paradigm shift in the ways we construct our models of the universe, our social systems, and our understanding of who and what can engage in the timeless pursuit of understanding we call science.
Our Reality, In Formation
A brief (re)introduction to information, highlighting recent applications in cybernetics & social programming, augmented reality & spatial computing. (ca.2022)
I’m a Black, Queer, transdisciplinary artist, designer, builder, researcher, archivist, inventor, mathematician, physicist, philosopher, atheist, scientific pantheist, post-humanist, animist and lots of other things.
Many years ago, I started a blog on Tumblr called “Never Sleep”. It was my visual diary and occasional place to post my work. Eventually, that blog became The Young Never Sleep Studio, a fluid creative network, personal exploration space and collaborative conduit. The Young Never Sleep was born out of a desire to learn, and extend my own creative capacities by collaborating with friends and providing services to clients. At the core of it’s ethos, a commitment to never succumb to the slumber of apathy, conformity or conservatism, retaining our rebellious youth by always questioning and challenging the world around us through our work and lives. I started using the phrase Another World is Possible as a way to proclaim the driving philosophy of the studio, that we could intentionally shape a better world through creativity. While managing the studio and personal practice, I worked for a slew of notable companies across sectors like science & education, hospitality, entertainment, healtcare, and finally, tech. I’m currently continuing to grow the vision through collective worldbuilding & storytelling as a way to develop new frameworks, products and systems underpinned by my ongoing research in Integrated Information.
The studio and the people I’ve been able to connect and create with have shaped so much of who I am becoming. Just like you, I’m continuously evolving. In the meantime, get to know me and my work on Are.na or explore my worlds on Yoo.
Focus Areas:
Fundamental Theories of Reality
AI/AGI
Color Theory
Consciousness
Emergent Spacetime
Full Systems Health & Wellness
Indigenous Knowledge Systems
Information Bias
Knot Theory
Mixed/Augmented/Extended Reality
Nonhuman Culture
Psychophysics
Quantum Theory, Quantum Information, Quantum Computing, Quantum Cryptography
Regenerative Economics
(Soft) Robotics
Theoretical Cosmology
Turing Machines
Transhumanism / Posthumanism
Select Press & Features
Quantum Culture: Mapping an Emerging Logic
Symbiofutures NY Climate Week 2024
Living Technology: Toward a New Science of Integrated Information - Abstract Accepted - Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Western Australia
Revision Path: Information, Technology & the Evolving Internet
The Strength of Mind
What Does an Art Director Really Do?
Sight Unseen