Superradiance is a multiscreen video and sound installation and film by Memo Akten and Katie Peyton Hofstadter that invites the viewer to extend their bodily perception beyond the skin and into the living environment.

The work interweaves dance, poetry, music, generative imagery and the neurological phenomenon of embodied simulation with artificial intelligence to evoke a visceral, intimate connection to the living planet, inviting us to not only observe, but also feel this connection in our own bodies.

It's one thing to intellectually know that we are deeply embedded within complex webs of life, interdependent physically, chemically, and biologically, across multiple scales of time and space. But how do we feel this, and collectively honor it?

Dance is one of our earliest biotechnologies. We dance to express ourselves, to connect to each other. Through ritual and ecstatic dance, we dance to experience union with the universe directly.

The cognitive phenomenon of embodied simulation (an evolved and refined version of ‘mirror neurons’ theory) explains how we feel and embody the movement of others, as if they are happening in our own bodies. The brain of an observer unconsciously mirrors the movements of others, extending to the planning and simulating execution of those movements within their own body. This phenomenon is even evident when we 'feel' the movement of fabric blowing in the wind. As Vittorio Gallese writes, "By means of a shared neural state realized in two different bodies that nevertheless obey the same functional rules, the 'objectual other' becomes 'another self.’”

Superradiance leverages this phenomenon in an immersive, ritual sanctuary, where invisible dancers connect us to each other and to animate environments. This embodied, mirrored experience extends our bodies beyond the skin, enhancing our understanding of the environment as part of our body: the forests and oceans become extensions of our lungs, heartbeats, and more — and vice versa.

The work currently consists of two chapters, with a third chapter in development.

Chapter 1: Embodied Simulation: meditates on the idea of the 'body' and the 'self' as a transient assembly of cells, microorganisms, and cosmic matter, temporarily organized to give rise to what we perceive as a body and a self. Framing dance as an ancient biotechnology—a primal, unifying act that connects individuals to each other and to the living world—the piece leverages the cognitive phenomena of Embodied Simulation to reflect on bodies as sites of exchange and transformation, and embrace the paradox of feeling like an individual, intelligent being, while being composed of trillions of other living, intelligent beings.

Chapter 2: Embodying Earth: While Chapter 1 looks inwards, and reflects on the body and the self as an assemblage composed of trillions of intelligent, living beings; Chapter 2 ventures outwards, beyond the skin, extending the body into the living environment, contemplating the whole planet as a living organism, brought into being through the intricate interplay between trillions of interdependent living organisms, of which we are part. Delving into the rich symbiotic webs of our living planet, 'Embodying Earth' journeys beneath the surface, where life metabolizes rock into soil. And then stands up into forests, rivers into the sky, before falling back to the earth as rain, into the ocean, into reefs, deserts, and back into the air, and back into the earth. The chapter weaves together the dynamic exchange between land, water, and sky, highlighting the transformative dance between geological and biological forces, as life both emerges from and reshapes the planet, and how ancient life continues to nourish the present, just as we will nourish the future.

Chapter 3: Cyborg Earth (currently in development) extends the notion of the living biosphere into the living technosphere, framing technology as an ecological, biological, geological process. Just as cyanobacteria transformed the early atmosphere creating oxygen, and created the conditions for life as we now know it, and the conditions for fire; just as Chemolithotrophs turned rock into soil and created the minerals of life; humans have turned these minerals and metals and fire, into integrated circuits, into data-centers, into server-farms, into fiber-optic cables, into the internet, into the global thinking nervous system of the technosphere.

In this chapter, the focus shifts to the emotional and spiritual disconnect humans feel from the earth and each other. It reflects on the severance caused by modernity—where optimization and control overshadow care and connection. By evoking the astronaut’s view of Earth and ancient planetary memories, it explores the gaps in our lived experience, calling for a reconnection with the mycelial threads of life and the deep pulse of the planet. The section blends personal and planetary rhythms, searching for lost connections. It questions how to care for a world that speaks in multiple, often conflicting, languages—scientific, spiritual, biological, computational. This section encourages holding space for complexity, embracing a superposition of epistemologies, spirit and matter, and embracing the mystery of life’s cycles as both individual and collective effervescence.