The human species has been through many revolutions. Among the greater of them can be counted the enlightenment and the industrialization. And, as Dr Yuval Harari speaks of in his book "Sapiens, a brief history of human kind";, one revolution stands out above the others, and that is the cognitive revolution. Sometime around 70 000 years ago, homo sapiens shared earth with about five other hominid species. Due to circumstances, most likely involving that of our own species, we ended up being the only one hominid left.
So, what is it that differentiates homo sapiens from other species? Yes, it is true that we are very well versed in cooperation. But so are ants. And we use tools. But so does apes and crows and other species too. What seems to separate us from others are our exceptional communication skills, or story telling skills, and our flexibility. Our tools are designed by us, using stories, or stored knowledge, to build tools upon tools and yet again new tools. The knowledge about them being passed along through stories. And as time goes, our tools become ever more changing and adapted to specific needs and purposes.
As our culture evolved over time, our stories have taken over a majority of our daily lives. Rarely do most of us today actively think of our most basic needs, given that we are not in war, poverty or disease. But instead, we are taken to think about concepts and ideas that are pure creations of the human mind. Nearly all that we perceive as to be important things around us are just thoughts of imagination really. Things like money, companies, law, democracy and so forth. All of those things are but constructions of ideas and concepts that together mold, shape and form the world that we perceive around us today. It forms our culture, and what it is to be human.
And so is it with tools. Indeed we use tools of yesterday - today as well. The wheel, the paper, the clock, the lamp. All those things being important in our daily lives. And so it has become with computers and technology as well. Over time, tools have come to take an ever more active role in our daily conversations with each other. Where before we mainly used our mouth to communicate, we started to store language on paper. And today, much of our communication is mediated by computers. From the sms, the mail, the phone call or the Google Hangout - tools mediate our stories, and therefore our thoughts, in evermore complex ways. Technologies in itself are designed to be alibis for interaction.
So then, where will this bring us in the future? What will become of human interaction and storytelling as technology evolves? What is interaction really, in a complex technological society? If technology mediates communication - who is the author - the bearer of the communication, or the designer of the medium which communication takes place through? Both, perhaps, some would argue.
Some believe that the next major revolution for humanity is to come within the coming century. Perhaps the greatest of revolutions since the cognitive revolution. This revolution takes its base in our biology and biochemistry labs of today. Over the past decade, work in understanding the human brain, our genome and epi-genomics have taken massive leaps forward. Where it was near to impossible to design or alter DNA in cells 20 years ago, this has become common. In competitions such as the International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition, under graduate students from all over the world compete in designing new synthetic life forms. In computer labs and labs for neuro cognitive scientists, much work is done trying to understand how our brain actually functions. Gradually we are starting to see possibilities in gene therapies and other transformative technologies, where it may be possible to alter the DNA of an individual to create specific outcomes in a (potentially) safe and (hopefully) secure manner. This would be that great revolution, some would argue. Or a disaster, some others would say. The day that homo sapiens leaves the ongoing evolutionary process, and takes control of its own evolution through biological and technological means. What would that world be like? How would we perceive ourselves in such a world? Would it be the emergence of a new form of sapiens? Who knows. The future is ours to shape.
One way to start to discuss the future of humanity, and the state of life as we know it on earth today, is through art and experimentation. And this is what Scenlaboratoriet is about. In the piece "In a coded reality", we aim to explore what it is to be human, and what it is to communicate through new and mind-altering ways. In this experiment, we have connected six participants to a neuro interface which converts data of electrical impulses in the brain to various forms of light. The light generated by the participants together informs the storyteller about how to read an interactive narrative, a story which is controlled by the collective unconscious of the participants, live, on stage. The work carried out in this project is the joint effort of computer scientists, interaction designers, neuro scientists, psychologists, authors, dramatists, props makers and several others. Its work on the crossroads of art and science, and it is a pleasure to be a part of. So... now to the experiment.
By
Carl Heath
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