Hi. My name is Joe Patitucci. My calling is to identify ways of combining the use of new and emerging technologies to extend real-time human perception into subtle realms of reality. I’m inspired to do this work because I believe that humans have sensory abilities beyond our current understanding. Through using technology to expand perception, we may activate innate capacities previously abandoned in our particular trajectory of technological evolution. In doing so, we may even identify ways of training people to use these faculties towards goals related to our long-term survival and evolution as a species.
Evolving here at home on Earth, it may seem counter-intuitive to expect that we should survive beyond the life of our solar system. I feel this acquiescence to an eventual death sentence by red giant contributes to an indifference related to our long-term survival. I feel this indifference allows us to reside in a state of consciousness that accepts the possibility of human self-annihilation through war and environmental destruction as being less than tragic. These scenarios become, in the collective consciousness, one of the many bullets in the chamber in a never-ending species-wide game of Russian roulette – just one of the many ways humanity might eventually manifest a destiny of erasure from the Universe.
For this reason, I feel it is essential that we as a species commit to searching for means of surviving beyond the life of our solar system, galaxy and known universe – not only to facilitate the continued evolution of humans into trans and post-humans, but also to unite those of us on Earth in harmony around mutually assured survival.
My work with Data Garden is inspired by my belief that in order for us to survive beyond our solar system, we’re going to need to tap into innate abilities that may not seem to have an immediate application here on Earth – abilities that may have been cultivated by artists, scientists, spiritual communities and technological societies of the past but faded due to their perceived irrelevance to our industrialized world. Since it’s not yet known what sensitivities will be required of us in our future homes in the cosmos, it becomes even more essential that we work to better understand and develop these latent faculties so that we might gain access to tools that provide us the capacity to experience and thrive in realms beyond our little valley of the sun.
Joe Patitucci is an artist fostering connection to intuitive states and the natural world through sound, breath and technology. As CEO of Data Garden, he is working to build a future where humans will have a real-time soundtrack to their lives generated from wearable data that is responsive to mood, tailored to taste and optimized for any activity.
Data Garden’s latest product, PlantWave, translates real-time data from living plants into music, creating harmonious sound environments powered by nature.
Joe’s Podcast, Nature of Now explores creative process and how new forms come into being.