Critter Compiler is a microbial prototype novel writer and a speculative experiment. The prototype grows marine algae using the heat from the central processing unit (CPU) of a computer created by the execution of a machine learning novel writing algorithm.
Today critter chips and “living sensors” are used in hundreds of applications from environmental remediation to cosmetic testing. These sensors upload and stream trillions of data points to big data repositories for the management and control of environments. In this talk I will discuss the critter compiler as a speculative and revolting figure for imagining a politics of sensing otherwise. In part by trying to get to grips with what is happening in the contemporary entanglements of capitalism, computers and environments in the context of the anthropocene era; and by attempting to reimagine other more poetic forms of entanglements between biotic subjects and computation, such as the Critter Compiler.
The prototype has been exhibited at Medea Malmo (2016) and Sussex University Digital Humanities Lab (2016) as part of the Ecologies of Intimacy Event. Read more about it in my chapter for Data Browser 06: Executing Practices.
