‘Q: What is it to share time? A: OM?’

Language is, in its very structure, dualistic, and this leads us again and again into the same polarizing splits of subject/object, mind/body, mental/physical, that one might despair of any attempt to see through the distinctions we draw in language to their continuous and real ground. I will attempt to enliven this old theme by consideration of the body using a trick drawn from the Taittirīya Upanishad, in which the body (and its complement, its world) is considered in a sequence of three steps, associated with the organs of the heart, the lungs, and the brain, respectively. We might call this exercise the Heart Meditation.

Fred Cummins has worked as an embodied cognitive scientist and a phonetician, seeking ways to understand ourselves as grounded in our bodies (not brains!). He has developed the study of Joint Speech, which is found wherever multiple people make the same sounds at the same time. 

‘Q: What is it to share time? A: OM?’

Language is, in its very structure, dualistic, and this leads us again and again into the same polarizing splits of subject/object, mind/body, mental/physical, that one might despair of any attempt to see through the distinctions we draw in language to their continuous and real ground. I will attempt to enliven this old theme by consideration of the body using a trick drawn from the Taittirīya Upanishad, in which the body (and its complement, its world) is considered in a sequence of three steps, associated with the organs of the heart, the lungs, and the brain, respectively. We might call this exercise the Heart Meditation.

Fred Cummins has worked as an embodied cognitive scientist and a phonetician, seeking ways to understand ourselves as grounded in our bodies (not brains!). He has developed the study of Joint Speech, which is found wherever multiple people make the same sounds at the same time. 

Notes on ‘Content’

As one-point perspective gives way to collective forms of knowing, media proliferates with no end, text is increasingly scanned and sensed more than read, and the myth of the individual-creative-genius is dissolved by the logic of swarm-trained LLMs, we are undergoing an epochal shift in human expression and reception. Surveying this communicational climate change, New Models co-founder Caroline Busta will examine the role of ‘content’ therein and some emergent frameworks of adaptation.

Caroline Busta is a co-founder of the critical media channel New Models. She was previously EIC of Texte zur Kunst, and an Assoc. Editor of Artforum. 

Notes on ‘Content’

As one-point perspective gives way to collective forms of knowing, media proliferates with no end, text is increasingly scanned and sensed more than read, and the myth of the individual-creative-genius is dissolved by the logic of swarm-trained LLMs, we are undergoing an epochal shift in human expression and reception. Surveying this communicational climate change, New Models co-founder Caroline Busta will examine the role of ‘content’ therein and some emergent frameworks of adaptation.

Caroline Busta is a co-founder of the critical media channel New Models. She was previously EIC of Texte zur Kunst, and an Assoc. Editor of Artforum. 

Our conventional understanding of intelligence has long been shaped by human and animal models, leaving little room to consider the cognitive potential of plants. However, emerging research challenges this perspective, revealing that plants engage with their surroundings in ways that suggest problem-solving, flexible adaptation, and even anticipatory forms of behavior. In this talk, I will present key findings, exploring how plants process information, respond to stimuli, and coordinate their actions through sophisticated signaling mechanisms. Beyond the scientific discoveries, these insights prompt deeper philosophical questions. Why do we struggle to conceive of plants as more than passive organisms?

Paco Calvo, professor of Philosophy of Science, Principal Investigator of the Minimal Intelligence Laboratory (MINT Lab) at the University of Murcia (Spain).

Our conventional understanding of intelligence has long been shaped by human and animal models, leaving little room to consider the cognitive potential of plants. However, emerging research challenges this perspective, revealing that plants engage with their surroundings in ways that suggest problem-solving, flexible adaptation, and even anticipatory forms of behavior. In this talk, I will present key findings, exploring how plants process information, respond to stimuli, and coordinate their actions through sophisticated signaling mechanisms. Beyond the scientific discoveries, these insights prompt deeper philosophical questions. Why do we struggle to conceive of plants as more than passive organisms?

Paco Calvo, professor of Philosophy of Science, Principal Investigator of the Minimal Intelligence Laboratory (MINT Lab) at the University of Murcia (Spain).