Memories are made up of information fragments– residue collected through experience. These fragments gain meaning through context, strung together to build stories. Storytelling is a method of preserving and shaping collective memory. Who/ what are the ocean storytellers? How can humans share these ocean memories?

OIOC:C/H 1 is an exploratory first chapter. The storyteller is the cephalopod. A non-anthropocentric methodology helps us to greet the storyteller’s experience, on their terms. By taking actions to reposition ourselves more like cephalopods, we shift our perspective. Drawing from cognitive science on theories of embodied and extended cognition, we posit that the act of trying to experience the world as a cephalopod creates a cross-species empathy that may reveal pathways to understand their worldview, stories, memories.

exploratory actions include: transcoding experiments, movement analysis, cognitive research. Transcoding experiments allow us to use our senses in alternative ways, to shift our worldview to better align with the cephalopod’s. Movement analysis leads to a cephalopod lexicon– translating movement into language and/or meaning. Cognitive science provides the theoretical foundation to help translate perspectives on behaviors to possible motivations. All actions aim to increase cross-species empathy.