WEEK 3: Toward a “tentacular thinking”

Tentacular thinking is an expansive definition proposed by Donna Haraway to overcome binary systems of knowledge and aim, instead, at embracing an understanding of reality inspired by the intelligence and sentience of tentacular beings (the octopus is a paradigmatic figure, with its decentralized intelligence is distributed across its limbs). We will explore how non-binary and distributed models of cognition can reshape our experience of the world, the ways we make sense of it, and the ways we speak about it (“It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories,” Haraway 2016). This session will emphasize expansive and non-anthropocentric notion of technology, considering it not necessarily an exclusively human endeavor. A selection of artworks will be referenced along the session.