CODAsummit 2022 | Closing Keynote

This is a transcript of our prepared remarks from the Closing Keynote of CODAsummit 2022, given on October 14, 2022 in Denver, Colorado

Envisioning the Future

We are Nathan Lachenmyer and Sadiya Akasha, and together we’re Sitara Systems.? We’re so excited to have been asked to be here today – everything that CODAworx stands for is near and dear to our hearts as technologists, designers, and artists.

Toni Sikes, CEO and Co-Founder of CODAworx, said yesterday that CODAsummit is about coming together to imagine the future – how we, as a community and as individual activists, can bring about change.? As you’ll hear from us, this is exactly what we’ve been spending a lot of the past few years thinking about, and we’re excited to share it with you.

Sitara Systems is a design and technology studio that creates interactive works in order to challenge audiences to think critically about the future.? We take ideas about complex systems and break them down into easy-to-digest pieces; we provide opportunities to reflect on the things that are important to us, and we create experiences that give audiences a sense of wonder and inspire them to do more.

While we’re experts in technology and design, our work takes us across a variety of domains.? We’ve created installations that focus on topics as disparate as cancer research, climate change, and linguistics.? What we bring to each project is a way of thinking about the world; we try to highlight opportunities for seeing systems at play, seeing where different topics intersect, and providing opportunities for self-reflection.

In this talk, we want to share with you some themes that we’ve spent the last two years thinking about, and how we've approached them in our work.

The past few years have shown that we live in troubled times – the COVID-19 pandemic, the George Floyd Protests, climate chaos, migration crises, and increasing economic inequality and insecurity are all examples of that. However, we both feel that we’re responsible for actively creating the kind of world that we want to live in.? Our line of work – making public installations –? means that we’re creating public projects that can have a bigger impact than we can have as individuals; so it’s important to us that we think deeply about our values and how we can bring them to each of our projects.

Our previous careers involved so-called visionary technologies such as quantum computing, neural prosthetics, genomics, and data science.? But we’ve come to realize that technology can’t solve the kinds of problems we face.? In fact, the world doesn’t need more technology – it needs more possibilities.

And that’s why we’re focused on helping people imagine a diverse set of possible futures, so that we can imagine new worlds that we might want to live, work, and play in.? These worlds involve understanding how to have empathy for one another and how to co-exist in this complex world we live in.? We need more emotional and social skills that will allow us to navigate the difficult choices that lie ahead.? The future is an abstract idea, and the present is something we can touch and feel right now – the question we’ve been asking ourselves is how can we bridge this gap to help people envision a better future?

So today we want to share some of the themes that have been inspiring our work as of late – Connecting with Nature, Gratitude and Community, and Ritual and Sacrifice.? In order to create a better future, we believe that we’ll collectively need to develop these values; and for those reasons we integrate them into each experience that we create.

Connecting With Nature

We’re so disconnected from nature that we often forget that the natural world is the ultimate source of our material goods – after all, semiconductors are mined from the ground, metals are smelted from ore, and plastics are refined from fossil fuels.? But the natural world also provides the less tangible but arguably more important gifts in beauty, art, and spirituality.

Indigenous religions around the world all see nature as a divine nature; to them, it is a provider and giver of life.? However, these cultures don’t only revere nature in this way – they also see themselves as a part of the larger whole, but one entity in a larger complex system.

But we’ve lost that connection with nature; rather than thinking of ourselves as a part of a system, we now seek to control it.? Most of us only see nature as landscaping, not as wilderness – manicured and maintained; a reminder that we control and curate it.? We don’t often get to see unbridled nature; the beauty of the vast wilderness is a reminder that nature is something bigger than us, that we are lucky to be a part of for only a brief moment.

This thinking had us ask the question: What if we used technology to bring people closer to nature?

And that brings us to our first project we’d like to share; In Love With the World.? In this project we were collaborators with conceptual artist Anicka Yi and the Tate Modern as part of the Hyundai Commission, an annual site-specific commission for the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall.

Anicka Yi’s work is interested in re-orienting our relationship with both technology and the natural world, and with this project she wanted to see if we could see ourselves as part of an interconnected whole – if we could see ourselves as a part of larger ecosystems, from the microflora and fauna inside of our bodies to the natural world that we shape around us.

Rather than seeing ourselves at the top of a pyramid, with technology empowering our rise, could we see ourselves in balance with both nature and technology; an interconnected web of complementary modes of intelligence and ways of living?? And from our own point of view, we wanted to know: could we bring that feeling of interacting with unbridled nature to the Tate Modern?

So our idea was, rather than bringing the space to life, we put life inside the space.? We transformed the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, a former power generation plant, into an aquarium of machines.

We created an intelligent, interconnected ecosystem of biologically-inspired machines, called Aerobes, that would, simply put, live in the Turbine Hall.? That sounds underwhelming, but our goal was that these machines weren’t there for our entertainment.? There was no show, there was no spectacle, and there was no narrative or climax to experience.? These machines simply existed, as if the Turbine Hall were their home, and we were briefly invited to co-exist in their space.? Our goal was to turn this man-made space into an ecosystem of its own.

We developed a cohesive set of life-like motivations, behaviors, and goals for these flying machines based on artificial intelligence research.? The physical forms and behavior of these robots were based on modern research into a variety of organisms, including jellyfish, mycelial networks, insects, plants, and even bacteria.? One presentation of our machines, called Aerobes, were inspired by the tentacled form of Moon Jellies; the other presentation was based on the microscopic planula and polyp forms of Jellyfish.

We designed their behaviors to be loosely inspired by the real-life behavior of these organisms in an attempt to make them feel as autonomous and real as possible.? In our design we sought to balance both the foreign and familiar, so that these biologically-inspired robots would allow visitors to simultaneously relate to them, as well as be awed by them.? Jellyfish were a great model, given that their physical forms are immediately obvious, but they’re still mysterious in that we don’t really know why or how they live.

One of the biggest challenges was to create behaviors for the Aerobes that felt alive and intelligent with nonverbal communication.? We wanted people to feel that there was a complex social intelligence living within these machines; that they understood the world around them, understood each other, and acted upon the world.? Our system created two distinct species that could co-exist in a virtual environment together.? Each species was given its own goals and motivations, and even simple reflexes that allowed it to respond to the environment.? Each Aerobe was given its own metaphorical “brain” that it could use to make decisions, and would change its mind based on what stimuli it was surrounded by.

The Aerobes’ life-like motion isn’t done justice by static images, so here a short video to share how they move:

A major reason we were excited to collaborate on this installation is that it gives us an opportunity to show the future as if it were the present.? Through a bit of stagecraft, we can ask the audience to suspend their disbelief and go on a journey with us to imagine – what if this was real?? By allowing people to experience this installation we can open up their minds for different futures that could be possible.

Working with experiential futures reminded us of a quote from Carl Sagan:

“The visions we offer our children shape the future. It matters what those visions are. Often they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Dreams are maps.”

So what are the maps that we’re creating?

One future that we wanted people to consider was one where artificial intelligence, and by extension machines, play a different kind of role in our lives.? So often we think of machines as made in our own image – with all of our own flaws and quirks.? It’s no wonder that our biggest concern about machines is that they’ll seek to replace us.? But in our proposed future, we wanted people to think about machines differently – as companions, as co-workers, or even as feral and wild animals – but not as replacements or sources of labor.??

Another future is one where we relate to other life.? Can we imagine a world where we share space with nature as it is, rather than trying to shape it to fit in the gaps?? We wanted these machines to be so compellingly life-like that people forgot that they were in an industrial space, and forgot that they weren’t interacting with creatures of flesh and blood.? We wanted to create creatures that people would respond to like a deer in the wilderness – that they would stand still, hold their breath, and hope that it would come closer.??

This project is the first of what we hope is many attempts in exploring new ways that we can bring the best parts of nature, and represent them in urban environments?? Can we bring a piece of the wilderness – not just an aesthetic piece, but the feeling of wilderness – to the city?

Gratitude and Community

Another theme that we’ve been thinking about over the past couple of years is Gratitude and Community.? We’ve specifically become interested in working on projects that help develop a keen sense of belonging.

Why is gratitude so important?? In our opinion gratitude is an intuitive path to finding happiness in life.? We live in a materialistic and transactional world, and there is always more that we can consume, more that we can exchange for fleeting experiences. Experiences often turn towards entertainment because feelings of joy, ecstasy, and surprise, can lead to more transactions, more to consume. But this traps us in a cycle where we continue to chase highs. When do we reflect on what we have instead of continuing to chase more? For many of us, the past few years created a moment in which we reflected on what we had, what we prioritized most in life, and wanted to cherish. Even though it was a dark time, it gave us space to reflect, and in doing so it was transformative for all of us.

What we saw in this shared experience was that gratitude has the transformational power to turn grief into hope.

During the pandemic many public facing institutions were closed to all but a limited number of visitors. One such institution, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute approached us during this time to perform renovations on a project that my partner? had been involved with before.

10 years ago Dana-Farber Cancer Institute looked to commission an installation that would allow their donors to share their dedication to cancer research. The zebrafish, a model organism for genomics and oncology research, became the focal point of the donor wall and became a visual metaphor for how many small donations can come together to create major change. Team members from Sitara Systems, Small Design Firm, Hypersonic, and Patten Studios collaborated to develop an interactive sculpture with 477 3d-printed zebrafish.

Each zebrafish was embedded with LEDs that would backlight the donor’s personal message inscribed on it; a simple touch would cause the lighting patterns to change and reveal the donor’s personal message on a nearby screen.

This installation was originally designed to use touch. You would touch a fish to see a message of hope. Many of these messages were about finding gratitude even through grief and heartache. This installation brought home to us that hope grows when you share it with others.? Reading these messages created intense feelings of sadness, but also feelings of hope and gratitude.

Here are some examples of the messages of hope:

In 2020 Dana-Farber Cancer Institute reached to us to help them refresh the Zebrafish Display. They wanted to maintain the integrity and intention of the original installation but update the interaction so that people with compromised immune systems could interact with it without having to touch the fish as an added measure of safety during the pandemic.

The Zebrafish wall means so much to people.? People who work in the building stop by the wall everyday on their way in; some of them have fish that they purchased for a family member or friend. It filled us with gratitude to have them come back after so long and want to keep the project around.??

Here’s a short video of the updated wall that you can seen in action:

For the 2020 update, the touch sensors were replaced with near field technology. This allowed patients with compromised immune systems to ‘touch’ their donated fish safely with their own devices. Using a phone a visitor or donor can see the donor message on their phone as well as the screens embedded in the wall. They can even bookmark the message and revisit it from afar.

At its core this is a community project that brings together people who have gone through difficult times and creates a sense of shared gratitude and belonging.? Many of the messages of hope are thanking Dana-Farber and the care team; the messages point out how grateful people are for time with their loved ones. So we wanted to really bring those messages even closer to the visitors, and donors.

Now thinking about our previous theme, of connection and nature, it’s hard to avoid that our line of work is not inherently sustainable.? Rare natural resources are mined from the earth, and through incredibly energy-intensive processes are converted from raw ore into the electronics that are ubiquitous in everything we use today.? Energy is then consumed to literally turn abstract data into heat and light. We tend to think about the energy consumed – an installation’s carbon footprint – through the power that’s consumed during use.? But for computers and display technology, more than half of the footprint is embodied in the manufacturing process even before it’s put to use.

This is something that we’ve been grappling with at Sitara Systems. How do we reconcile the different values that we bring to bear in our projects, in the future that we hope to co-develop with the public. To tackle this, we’ve started thinking about the full lifecycle of all materials used in our projects, creating preferred vendor lists who have transparent production details, creating end of life plans and taking on maintenance responsibilities so we can ensure proper recycling for the electronics that we deploy for each of our installations.

And recently, our work with Dana-Farber has taken a new direction, shifting into focusing on sustainable renovations of existing projects as technology becomes more efficient and consumes less energy during its life cycle. We’re working with Dana-Farber to create a sustainable practice for maintaining the installations that they already have.? These installations have prominent positions in their building and have meaning to their communities, but the technology doesn’t last forever.

The reason we approach our projects sustainably is because if we didn’t, we’d be saying that it’s not important when it truly is.? By continuing to make as minimal of an impact on the world as possible – reclaiming materials, minimizing energy consumption – we are practicing hope for a future that we want to belong to. Being sustainable is a practice of hope and gratitude.

Ritual and Sacrifice

Our recent research into this idea of a divine nature has also led us to exploring myth – myth has become an interesting topic to explore specifically because we misunderstand it.? We think of myth as fiction; as stories that aren’t true.? We think of myth as a long time ago, when gods walked the earth, and a time when the impossible happened on a regular basis.? But originally myth was complimentary to logic as a way to think about the world.? While logic deals with objective facts and pragmatic affairs, it fails at dealing with our inner world.? Logic cannot assuage sorrow, reconcile grief, or create hope.

Myth is essentially an ancient form of psychology, designed to help us deal with our inner worlds.? It does this by invoking events which, in a sense, happened once – but also happen all of the time.? It redirects our attention from the present, and allows us to think about the past and the future.? It allows us to see the transient events in our lives as a part of something universal that transcends this particular moment.

It does this by embodying these events in ritual.? Ritual creates moments where we’re asked to slow down, to re-enact these myths, and to be reminded of the bigger picture - of the world that we’re a part of.? Rituals are designed to make sure that we don’t forget the lessons of our myths – they help us remember what we value the most, what connects us between individuals, between communities, and between generations.

But now most cultures have cleaved the world into two – an objective world of logic and science that we inhabit; and a world of myth, whose only power is to entertain us with stories of the past.? That myth is such a powerful tool for storytelling is exactly why we’re interested in it.? We’re now looking at how to incorporate myth and ritual into site-specific works by adding elements of theater, ritual, and ceremony into our work.? Can we make our work more transformational by beginning each experience with a ceremony, to prime the senses and the mind?? Can we keep that moment of connections lasting even longer if we provide a closing ritual, to provide audiences with a moment to synthesize their thoughts?? And how can we amplify our work if these rituals are performed over and over again, across both communities and across the years?

All of this talk of myth, ritual, and transformation begs the question: If we could transform people, how would we want to transform them?

And again, myth gives us an answer.

Many origin stories begin with a great sacrifice.? The primordial deities of the world sacrifice something of value – their belongings, their loved ones, even their own bodies – to bring our world into creation.? But what’s interesting is that these myths don’t see a world created this way as an immaculate and perfect one – they acknowledge that even with sacrifice, however great, the world is imperfect.

It’s an understood lesson that in order to live in this world, we have to continue to make small sacrifices to maintain the balance.? In a sense, it’s both our duty and responsibility – our obligation – to make self-sacrifices in order to repair this broken world.? The rituals that embody these myths serve as constant reminders of this duty.

To bring about a better future, we’ll all be asked to make sacrifices – to give up things that were once normal, or decline things that we don’t yet have.? We won’t be asked to make a great sacrifice like those of myth – but we may be asked to make a number of smaller changes to our lifestyles.

And ritual can help us go through the transformative experience of sacrifice, so that we know how to build that muscle.? The act of sacrificing flowers, food, or even money, is an exercise that we can use to build this skill.? The idea of ritual is that if we practice these small sacrifices regularly, when a sacrifice beyond the ceremonial is asked of us, it won’t feel unfamiliar.

Envisioning the Future

Tying this back to envisioning the future – we’ve historically been pretty terrible at making decisions for a better future.? The future is an abstract idea, a far-off time; in some sense, you could even say that the future is a myth.

In the meantime, the present is here and now.? It’s in our face, it’s impossible to ignore, and we experience it intensely.? How could we possibly think of sacrificing something in the now, for an uncertain future?

Herein lies both the problem and the solution. If we practice these values now, hoping for a future we want to live in, then that future will become more real for us; in turn, practicing these values will make small sacrifices easier to bear. We just need to start with the project we’re each working on now in order to make that future more vivid and to initiate a virtuous cycle.

So this is the next theme for us to explore – we’re still thinking about how to bring these ideas into the world with art.? But we’re convinced that if we want our art to be truly transformational – as I’m sure everyone here does – it can’t always be consoling, familiar, and undemanding.? We’re hoping to create art that can encourage all of us to be better, and to create a better world.

We wanted to finish with something we heard Toni Sikes say yesterday in her Opening Remarks that resonated with us:

“We came here to reconnect as a community, and to learn, share, and refuel.? But hopefully we leave with a reimagined vision of the future -- and the role we all play in creating that future.”

We’ve found meeting and talking with all of you to be quite inspiring and we hope that you too are inspired for the role that you can play in creating that future.

Thank you.