John De La Parra, a food scientist from the Rockerfeller Foundation spoke on the first day of The Conference, after a pretty esoteric (to me) presentation that asked us to participate in a guided meditation, listen to plants and submit our dreams to an experimental app.

It was pretty far from my comfort zone.

He acknowledges the segue from artist practice into his more science-based work by quoting Alan Watts (the philosopher who’s on-screen simulation mentors ScarJo’s AI in “Her”*):

“See, there are basically two kinds of Philosophy – one’s called prickly, the other one is called goo. Prickly people are precise, rigorous, logical – they like everything chopped up and clear. Goo people like it vague, big picture, random, imprecise, incomplete and irrational. Prickly people believe in particles, goo people believe in waves. They always argue with each other but what they don’t realize is neither one of them can take their position without their opposition being there. You wouldn’t know you are advocating prickles unless someone else was advocating goo. You wouldn’t even know what prickles was and what goo was. Life is not prickles or goo, its gooey-prickles or prickly-goo.”

That stuck with me – and I searched for the quote on my return to the UK – to find that it had been animated, in a production from… Matt Stone and Trey Parker of South Park fame.

Nice one, universe.

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* Incidentally, note the anachronism in that scene from “Her”, where Artificial Superintelligence coincides with gas hobs and stove-top kettles! Paging Rewiring America to demand an electrified directors cut!