A Natural History of Networks / SoftMachine is an audiovisual performance. At its core a fluid metal alloy (Galinstan) is animated by custom-built electrochemical apparatus creating organic movements and fractal-like structures. The animations are accompanied by a sonic layer, the direct translation of the electrochemical processes taking place in the fluid, a mélange of drifting frequencies, pulses, patterns, and noise. 

The performance explores an alternative computational and technological material regime, informed by Gordon Pask’s experiments on electrochemical artificial learning mechanisms and current research on biomimicry and programmable matter. The custom-built electrochemical apparatus creates a dynamic fluidic microcosm that performs a continuous becoming of form, structure, and material narrations. The performance aims to provoke new imaginaries of the machinic, the artificial, and matter. A radical technology that bridges traditionally discrete machine thinking and soft/fluid materials that enable self-organizing behavior through their specific material agencies. The neo-alchemistic material performance is captured by multiple cameras and composed and displayed in real-time on a projection screen. 

The performer is manipulating and modulating Galinstan, a liquid metal alloy composed of gallium, indium, and tin immersed in a solution of sodium hydroxide. This inorganic “wetware” is stimulated by applying alternating electrical pulses through a set of electrodes. The evolving plexus of liquid metal creates distinctive electrical milieus in the chemical system. By sensing, analyzing, and acting on changes in the shape-shifting fluid, an (un)controllable process is triggered in which the network reacts to its input in a closed feedback loop. Models and methods of self-organization are introduced into the system to enable homeostasis to occur. SoftMachine is an analog/digital hybrid to speculate about a heterogeneous technological culture.