Mycorrhizal Curation: Minimal Cognition for Maximal Cooperation

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Since 2015, when the authors first wrote a chapter about the state of curation for electronic art (pointing to the absence of works significantly addressing the epistemic implications of a computational logic), artificial intelligence and wider algorithmic forms of logic have become more pervasive themes within mainstream art, with, for example, exhibitions such as ‘AI More than Human’ (2019) at the Barbican Centre, London, the increasing profile of the Lumen Prize, as well as headline grabbing events such as Christie’s auction of the AI-generated painting ‘Portrait of Edmond Belamy’ (2018, created by GAN [Generative Adversarial Network]). The logic of computation is now, if not generally understood, a ubiquitous facet of the curatorial imaginary, begging the question: where are the alternatives and challenges to Western computation, to the Neoplatonist ideals of mathematical logic? Appraising discourse addressing the non-human and the arboreal, the authors present a radically alternative set of practices, framed as Mycorrhizal Curation, a provocative affront to human representational systems and power relations which place the human at the apex of all epistemic hierarchies, but also, the authors intend to provide a provocative challenge to the hegemony of the artworld, with shifts to models of amicable cooperation and wealth distribution.