How To Become An Octopus In The Here And Now

How to Be an Octopus in the Here and Now? With Miriam Simun 31 October 2026 · Fools’ Valley · 11:00–16:00 What might we learn by thinking, sensing, and moving like an octopus? In this embodied, experimental workshop, artist Miriam Simun and the Institute for Transhumanist Cephalopod Evolution invites participants to explore the world from the perspective of the soft-bodied, many-armed cephalopod. Through movement, sensory attention, imagination, and collective reflection, we explore what cephalopod intelligence might teach us about presence, distributed cognition, collective sensing, relationality, and uncertainty. [More about the Institute for Transhumanist Cephalopod Evolution (ITCE): www.0ctopus.net (Zer0, not “o”)] This ‘here and now’ version moves between individual and group somatic exercises and group dialogue practice. “Here and Now” is a practice in which participants focus on what is happening between them in the present moment, using immediate feelings, perceptions, roles, and relational dynamics as the material for inquiry, to reveal the unconscious patterns the group is collectively producing. Expect sensory play, movement explorations, and moments of gentle discomfort as we probe the boundaries between self and environment, visibility and withdrawal, surface and depth. Some questions we may explore: How are we sensing collectively? How are we acting unconsciously? How can we use the body to shift ourselves and the group? The session will last 4 hours. We will alternate between periods of silent movement, still dialogue, movement with dialogue, and reflection. We will work alone, in pairs, and as a group. There will be an invitation to come into touch with yourself, your environment, and the others around you. Miriam Simun is a visual artist whose multidisciplinary practice uses science, somatics, scent, and humor to explore ways of knowing — the non-visual senses, interspecies relations, and radical reimaginings of life under ecological crisis. Trained as a sociologist, she works as an "artist-as-fieldworker," conducting first-person research with communities from scientific laboratories to rewilded forests, freedivers to human pollinators — research that shapes the final artworks, spanning video, installation, painting, performance, and communal sensorial experiences. Their work has been presented at the New Museum, Gropius Bau, MIT List Center for Visual Art, Ars Electronica, Momenta Biennale, and the Bogotá Museum of Modern Art, among others. She is a recipient of grants and fellowships from Creative Capital, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, the Onassis Foundation, and the Gulbenkian Foundation, and has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, BBC, and Forbes. Simun holds degrees from the MIT Media Lab, NYU's ITP, and the London School of Economics. Www.miriamsimun.xyz Schedule 11:00–13:00 — Training 13:00–14:00 — Lunch 14:00–16:00 — Training 16:00–17:30 — Sauna Tickets Early Bird — €20 (through 11 October) Regular — €40 (from 12 October) Add-on: Dinner & Sauna — +€20 (optional, on top of either ticket) Location Fools' Valley is a residency space, research lab, and occasional venue for events and retreats, set in rolling hills 30 minutes outside Lisbon. The property offers a 200sqm dancehall with a vinyl floor, a wood-fired sauna, a natural swimming pond, a meditation room, a library, a gym, fast wifi throughout, and 20 private bedrooms with 34 beds in total. If you'd like to stay over, you can book a room here. Practical Information Please wear clothes that are comfortable for movement and lying on the floor. Special accommodations can be arranged. Please email msimun@gmail.com at least three days before the event to discuss your needs. More about the Institute for Transhumanist Cephalopod Evolution (ITCE): www.0ctopus.net (Zer0, not “o”)