How to (Fail to) Become an Octopus

I request that you fully submerge and do your best to become an octopus, too. 

Miriam Simun founded the Institute for Transhumanist Cephalopod (ITCE) in response to rising sea levels. Last spring in Brooklyn, she led a group of around 40 people to dance, touch and observe themselves, each other and their environment in an effort to be more like octopuses (and sometimes squid). She believes that if we try our best to become these slimy, eight-armed creatures, then who we will become in the process is greater than we already are. 

The song at the beginning is by humanoide9000 and the ending song is by Miriam Simun. Find more of her research and work here. Special thanks to Sarah Kate Kramer. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_06 0:09

Let's just do something for fun. You're just a sight song. Let's just do something for fun.

SPEAKER_04 0:26

I'm a big believer that the thing that you imagine is the thing that becomes possible.

SPEAKER_06 0:34

Let's just do something for fun.

SPEAKER_04 0:38

We tend to see the world through the stories that we're told.

SPEAKER_06 0:46

Let's just do something for just a side song.

SPEAKER_04 0:56

I continuously got this response from men of oh you want to be a mermaid. And I would be so confused to say, what? I don't want to be a mermaid. So I watched The Little Mermaid. And there's this very powerful, for me, much more fun and interesting character that is Ursula. This half human, half octopus. And she's a kind of evil, but very charming and very powerful character. And so I thought, why would I want to be the mermaid? I'd much rather be Ursula.

SPEAKER_03 1:31

So the first thing we do is we prepare to go into the sea.

SPEAKER_05 1:36

In two, three, four, and out. Two, three just I'm interested in what happens when we try and fail to become an octopus. And in, two, three, four, and out.

SPEAKER_04 1:55

But yeah, trying and failing opens up.

SPEAKER_06 2:03

And then all under here.

SPEAKER_04 2:11

Perhaps it gets confusing what is self and what is others. Because if you have an arm but you're not sure what it's doing, then when you encounter it, like is that me, is that not me? Which is interesting, but also that means that when you encounter a seashell, it's also perhaps is that me, is that not me? You just do grow a really different sense of empathy and care when you realize that uh we are inseparable.

SPEAKER_05 2:56

Justice. That's just something more enough.

SPEAKER_08 3:06

Normally, like as soon as we make contact with a stranger, we have all kinds of things we think along with that. It was definitely weird to make contact with strangers the first few times. And it was pleasantly weird to notice how we all let go of that inhibition.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

When I started to explore closing my eyes and then touching a lot of different body and texture, you know, I wasn't sure what I was touching.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Head, face, like press, you know, butt, like places where you would have touched.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

I thought I would be so ready and uninhibited, but then suddenly when we are doing it, I I found myself like a shy octopus rather than an explorative one.

SPEAKER_03 4:15

There is one part of our body that is kind of quite octopus-like.

SPEAKER_04 4:21

And that's our tongue.

SPEAKER_08 4:29

At first it was like, oh boy, this is gonna be weird. Do I stick my tongue out first? Like, self-consciousness and all the social stuff that comes along with it. As soon as I decided to let go of the self-consciousness, I I had the intuition her tongue is gonna look like a sea creature. Are you telling me something or are you just doing your own thing? Do you want me to follow? Do you want me to lead? Do you want me to contradict you? Is this a time where we might leave? It was like watching a sci-fi movie where two beings are just communicating.

SPEAKER_04 5:16

It's just huh. With breathing, something I do all day and night, I didn't know what I could do. Like what other capacities do I have housed within my body that I don't know about?

SPEAKER_03 5:42

And as always, the invitation to notice your impulse and see what it's like to go with your impulse, see what it's like to go in the opposite of what you're doing.

SPEAKER_04 5:54

Your urge to breathe is a lie, your urge to breathe is a lie. How do we learn to listen to other signs about how we should interact, how we might relate to things.

SPEAKER_03 6:11

Your urge to lie.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

I do feel like I've unlocked. Unlocked or released some, you know, something preconceived in my mind.

SPEAKER_08 6:28

We are really casting off all our connotations and interpretations and just in the present moment and exploring, and what is this? I don't know. The boundaries of self begin to melt. There is this expanding consciousness.