I spent some months researching Ergot, a fungi species I found to be fascinating. In particular, I was interested in how humanity's different relationships with it related to the topic of the loss of self. What I mean by this is the loss of the sense of discrete separation between an individual and the world. I find this notion both extremely frightening and very useful to rethink the way humanity exists in relation to our environment.

In particular for this project I wanted to focus on the psychedelic effects of ergot alkaloids, from which LSD is synthesized. Since I’ve been wanting to use AI video making tools for a while, I though the aesthetics would match quite nicely with the topic; but I also felt there was another way in which these emerging technologies related with this topic.

The increasingly magical powers of AI and XR push the boundaries of human sensing, and in some cases have achieved a consistent illusion upon the human sensory apparatus: i’m thinking of haptic button in apple products, for example. Meta is a company that is actively trying to achieve this, because for Mark Zuckerberg, the metaverse is about presence, so their whole approach to the space is based on the idea of tricking the senses into perceiving a companion that isn't really there. You can see this in things like the codec avatars they have showcased. I happen to think that this a fundamentally flawed approach to the idea of inhabiting virtual worlds, but that's an argument I will make somewhere else.

The case of AI is much more clearer, we are at a point now where we know pretty much anything we see could have been artificially manufactured, no matter how believable it looks.

What is interesting to me is that these technologies are becoming increasingly better at deceiving our senses. And this resonates with so many topics associated with psychedelia: the distrust of our sensory apparatus, the questions regarding the boundaries of objects, the blurring of the categories which we utilize for constructing our base reality. There is in here as well, a dissolution of self.

I think this is a trend that will continue in years to come, and I think we should consider the question of how to take advantage of it for the betterment of our collective selves.