Recess’s Session program presents the INSTITUTE FOR TRANSHUMANIST CEPHALOPOD EVOLUTION (ITCE) founded by interdisciplinary artist and researcher Miriam Simun.

In a future marked by polycrisis brought on by rapid climate technological development and climate change, ITCE is dedicated to evolving the human species based on the role model species one the oldest and most adaptable class of animals on planet Earth: cephalopods – octopuses, squids, and cuttlefish. Through research, education, and experiential programs, ITCE seeks to expand the boundaries of human perception and intelligence. Committed to developing biotechnologies of practice within existing human bioavailabilities, the Institute fosters radical new perspectives on ad loo aptation and self and group transformation. While at Recess, ITCE will have expanded and deepened its work with collaborators from the fields of invertebrate biology, neuroscience, freediving, somatic practices and group psychology, among others.

Join us for the closing of this project featuring a series of performances and readings that enact portals by ITCE friends and co-conspirators at Recess and culminating in the nearby Naval Cemetery Landscape (weather permitting). Barnett Cohen will present an excerpt from an upcoming performance that spans the continuum from aggression to embrace. Joel Kuennen will disperse hand-made moon mirrors to the audience for a collective engagement of the moon as a portal of desire. A performance by AR will blur, fog, merge – looking, being looked at, fading the boundary between legibility and total confusion.