Global Slime Mould Migration

How can a non-human - a slime mould – embody and predict the future of humanity? As humans were and will be migrating in response the changing climate, it is only a question how the current climate crisis will affect migration trajectories. How would a slime mould redistribute the global population in response to the changing climate? Which cities will become the major hubs of transit in this century? To realise this a slime mould will model a two-dimensional heat map according to Scheffer et al. 2020 as a live performance. Simultaneously there will be a realtime video feed from microscopes of selected locations on the world map. The visible fluid dynamics of the slime mould, as well as the details of the model will draw the attention away from the global, towards local scales of migration and murmuration. As the slime mould sheds light on our future, we are invited to go beyond conventional ideas of computational modelling and media theory.

In the heart of the ‘Blob’ (Physarum polycephalum), a seemingly unassuming amoeba, Kaspar Wachinger, and the Biologial Physics and Morphogenesis research group unravel a network of genetic communication that defies conventional understanding. Without a neuron in sight, this single-celled giant showcases sophisticated decision- making, memory retention, and anticipatory behaviors. Through Microinjection of DNA dye into the Network structure of the Amoeba, Kaspar’s study uncovers how hundreds of millions of nuclei within the blob can communicate and coodinate. New and exciting light based methods will be developed and explored within the proposed science and media project to communicate with this surprising being. The blob’s intricate world of self-organizing networks nudges us towards a humbling revelation: intelligence, in its myriad forms, is not a sole dominion of creatures with brains. By shedding our anthropocentric lens, we’re invited into a universe where every organism, no matter how small, has a story to tell and a lesson to impart. In embracing this broader perspective, we don’t just expand our scientific horizons, but we cultivate a deeper sympathy and appreciation for the myriad forms of intelligence that share our world.