Algorithms + Slimes

Algorithms + Slimes is an ongoing artistic-academic research project that takes slime molds as teachers that we as students can learn from about worldly processes, including algorithmic practices. Appreciating the shapeshifting qualities of both slime molds and algorithms in the planthroposcene, we do not draw boundaries to try and capture what slime molds “are” or how they can be “used” for some purposes, but rather attend to what these ancient beings can and want to share with us. Through this practice of careful attention and relationship building to these more-than-human beings, we invite slime molds into a series of actions that will inform what we can come to know of them, if they wish to be known. From here questions about algorithmic processes and knowing algorithms in the planthroposcene are unfolded.