{"id":5892,"date":"2025-11-16T09:45:24","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T09:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antonyhall.net\/blog\/?p=5892"},"modified":"2026-01-07T08:08:44","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T08:08:44","slug":"pond-brain-simulation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antonyhall.net\/blog\/pond-brain-simulation\/","title":{"rendered":"Becoming Pond \u2013 A statement of intent"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Being Moss<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the past couple of years, I have been focusing on mosses. I learned a lot about moss, but to really understand it, I actually started embodying and reflecting moss-like behaviours in my working practice. I began to become like the moss. Thinking through moss affords a different way of practising and being in the world. I employed a ‘methodology of moss’ to guide my practice, a set of principles for eco-activist practice that draws parallels between the ecology of moss and eco-arts practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

The power of moss is in its smallness and its slow persistence. It’s both interesting and challenging to align these principles with the fast-moving worlds of emerging technologies, new media and AI.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mosses, like artists, tend to thrive in strange and difficult niches, liminal spaces between; in doing so, they can enrich communities through their slow encroachment; a protective biocrust provide anchorage for collaboration, and teh development of tools and ideas. I like to think that embodying the quality of moss in my work has had <\/span>a <\/span>genuinely transformative effect on my practice. On the downside, such quietly attentive, slow-moving practice keeps me at the periphery and well out of the spotlight. However, in these \u00a0shady moist neices I find a rich substrate, full of like minded individuals and new ways of being and practices that have insperied me.<\/span><\/p>\n

Becoming Pond – A statement of intent<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

This particular moss journey has brought me back to the origins of my artistic practice in ecological and bio arts, while pulling those early concerns forward into my current ecosystem: a new personal terrain where ecomedia, sustainable UX, carbon literacy and AI intersect. I\u2019m now asking what it means to carry a moss-like methodology into this \u201cpost-AI\u201d world, and to let it seep into the design of interfaces, machines and stories.<\/p>\n

Moving forward, I am redirecting my research back to pond life, which was the subject of my BA degree final project.<\/p>\n

Ponds share many similarities with mosses. They are overlooked and undervalued ecosystems. Ponds develop quickly and are often temporary, liable to dry up or become overgrown quickly. Therefore, pond-specific organisms must adapt rapidly to environmental changes. Teh interseat with mosses, and wetland ecosystems sometimes become bogs.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

This return to pondlife was partly inspired by reading James Bridle’s ‘Ways of Being’<\/a>. Bridal reminds us that AI systems are modelled after the corporate model of intelligence, designed to maximise efficiency; they are competitive and extractive. <\/span>So, what would an alternative model of a computer intelligence look like? What other intelligences might be modelled artificially: institutions, beings, ecologies, and non-human intelligences? <\/span>This<\/span> led me to reflect on Stafford Beer’s early work in cybernetics, in which he alludes to a ‘pond-brain experiment’ but provides no specific details. The concept of the “pond-brain” uses a pond’s ecological dynamics as a model for understanding complex systems. He suggests that the interactions and feedback loops within a pond environment could inform cybernetic approaches to problem-solving, emphasising the importance of adaptability and resilience in both biological and artificial systems.<\/span><\/p>\n

My immediate thought was, what if you created a ‘pond computer’ or pond-based AI? \u00a0<\/span>What is it to think like a pond? How would this then guide my practice? What does a metyhodology of pond feel like? What would one do with a pond computer? How would we interface with it? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As yet i am not sure but i am looking forward to learning about experimenting cybentices and feedback systems. <\/span>So far, the project has taken me on a thought journey, meandering between plant thinking, Turing’s O’ computer, Tarot cards and other oracular interfaces, which I intend to write about soon. This project has also required me to gain a better understanding of how AI works and whether I could train my own model. (see Plato’s cave experiment <\/a><\/span>here<\/span>). But most enjoyable <\/span>it<\/span> has necessitated reflecting on the ecology of pondlife and how to simulate this, to test the computer (and sometimes just for fun)<\/span> See pond life simulator v1<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Being Moss Over the past couple of years, I have been focusing on mosses. I learned a lot about moss, but to really understand it, I actually started embodying and reflecting moss-like behaviours in my working practice. I began to become like the moss. Thinking through moss affords a different way of practising and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5910,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[328,279],"tags":[337,341],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/antonyhall.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5892"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/antonyhall.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/antonyhall.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antonyhall.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antonyhall.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5892"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/antonyhall.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5979,"href":"https:\/\/antonyhall.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5892\/revisions\/5979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antonyhall.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/antonyhall.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antonyhall.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antonyhall.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}