Nga manawataki o te koiora: biological rhythms, posthuman design and decolonial thought

SHORT PAPER. Western science, in fields such as computational ecology, has grown to accept the truths that Indigenous culture have long known: that computational ecology accepts that ecological models are too complex to be summarised in computational form. Since this complexity evades the codification of mere indexing, how then, should we work with computational companions (code, algorithms, programs, platforms). What new ways of intra-acting can we develop alongside computational frameworks, which bring us one more step closer to sentient machines? Most importantly, how can ethical ways of thinking and doing motivate transformations in the computational space, in areas such as machine learning where extreme problems of bias are now embedded? This research does not answer these complex questions, for they are genuinely ‘wicked problems’ that reach toward wider issues of equity, sustainability, and economy. Our aim is to use creative practice to generate gestures and markings that tentatively trace a way forward. This research contributes to new modalities of human computer interaction that attempt to restore the dynamic pathways developed by Indigenous thinking, challenging artificial boundaries such as nature/culture, instead giving respect to concepts of interconnection. Examining some of the differences between Western epistemology and Indigenous thinking opens a pathway toward Indigenous Futures that are crafted in support of a decolonial ecology.