Animism research
animism is often (wrongly) seen as the first religion while it is more of a way to view the world. Japanese animism: Shinto – souls/spirits/gods called kami -> reflected in many stories (ghibli movies, pokémon, yokai), shrines with one “go-shintai”, an object that can house a kami, also “kamidana” with Shide (folded paper strips)
community: could have digital shrines on major natural landmarks that work with AI translation. Like scanning a QR-code and then being able to speak to the river/tree/mountain-“spirit” about their emotions and health
From animism to religion: garden of eden
People living in interaction with plants, AI translating devices make a heavenly communal life possible, everything is over-the-top romanticised
Imagining the translation tool
AI permanently connected to the body, picking up VOCS (scents), ultrasonic sounds (cavitation) from the air. Other ways plants communicate: electric signals, and root signals (mycelium network)
Idea of plants communicating in emotions not words – a bit like babies who have different cries for different needs. Other option: musical communication like whale song. (logical error: if AI can translate their need into sounds, why not make it speech all along?)
scenario: human getting the translation device in hope of caring better for their “friend” pet plant but as soon as the speaking device is implemented, we can hear that the potted plant is screaming nonstop because it can never be as happy as living in the woods. The scene would be the emotional journey of the human from hope, feeling pity for the plant and trying to make it happy to being more and more annoyed and angry, eventually throwing it out because he cannot bear the screams and cannot turn the permanent device in his ear off.
New approach: Ecological consciousness as monetary value
economic system: for every product consumed that is categorized as “luxury” or “not necessary for subsistance”, one has to take in a seedling that equals the CO2 of the consumed product. They have to care for them and “breed” them until they are strong enough to live in the woods on their own, then they are “released into the wild”.
Plants integrated into housing situations in Vienna:
Alterlaa, Hundertwasserhaus, MA48-Zentrale
values/goals in this world scenario: less consumerism, community-oriented life, using new free time (no more jobs) to care about the environment, reach net-zero in carbon emissions
specific community possibility: “rich”, greedy, higher class community hoards loads of plants that they neglect and let die just to be able to consume more, living with a constant cacophony of screams in their ear translators, basements full of bio waste but flats full of luxury goods.
AI workshop film to represent the scenario:
Different approach: discovering new values in this post-work, post-capitalist economy
economic models:
- Universal basic Income (UBI)
- Post-work/post-capitalism/Fully Automated Luxury Communism (FALC)
- Data as Labour: Digital data as means of production and thus as a new source of income, question of who owns the access to AI-inputs? Data as new currency.
Work environment:
Repair services for physical systems, care work, creative production
Shift in values, shift in status
Redefining meaning:
care work, free time, creativity, and the common good (but -> UBI without enough social security, no possibility to save up), lifelong education
Care work: plant/animal/human, mechanical/haptic aspect and emotional intelligence
A healthy person has a thousand wishes, a sick person only one.
probably Confucius
free time: grindset is over, more value to “unemployment”, free time and sleep
common good: new value in community-oriented activities, intergenerational connection
lifelong education: keeping up with the new rapidity of technology; acquiring creative skills; learning about oneself
creative expression and production
AI made me believe in a human soul by showing me what art looks like without it
Some student on the Angewandte toilet
-> AI understood as a tool, not a living being. Through the soullessness of AI the path back to an animist world view is set. Slop and coldness of AI enforces the appreciation of life, helping society to raise value to: free time and boredom, non-entertainment, sleep, idleness, mental health, empathy, care
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