Goda Klumbyte is to Explore Slime Moulds and Algorithms in a Collaborative Research Residency

During the residency Goda Klumbytė will be working with artist Ren Loren Britton on a project tentatively titled “Algorithms + Slimes”. During the project they will investigate non-human slime moulds as companions in research on the algorithmic condition. Drawing on previous collaborative work on SliMoSa3 – a critical speculation about future AI technology that operates as a slime mould (Myxomycetes) – they intend to develop a series of speculative, visual, and textual studies that are rooted in human and non-human embodiments and their interactions with algorithmic technologies and practice.

The research will entail searching for slime mould in the local forest, observation, collaborative field research and writing, as well as building of sculptural work. How does slime mould digest and move across decomposing materials and what kinds of slime-based movements might be juxtaposed with step-based algorithmic operations? What can we learn alongside Myxomycetes that release form (myxo = from Greek “mucus”) and change their ontology based on environmental conditions? What kind of decompositions, transformations and digestions are needed to slime up fixed algorithmic processes? The research is rooted in the non-extractive ethos of working with non-human companions. Based on this research, the collaborators plan to develop written and material outputs that explore algorithmic embodiments through everyday queer realties of human and nonhuman organisms.

Within this collaboration, Goda Klumbytė is specifically interested in what forms of intelligence, understanding and knowing emerge in cross-species engagement with organisms that have been extensively used to create algorithms and solve optimization and engineering problems. This is part of the more experimental research in her post-doctoral project within AI Forensics (funded by Volkswagen Foundation). Through this collaborative, experimental and creative work G. Klumbytė will seek to better understand what can be possible forms of knowing and working with opaque systems (in this case, both slime moulds and complex algorithmic systems).