Cultural probes

Based on Jeff Hawkins’ theory of a Thousand Brains: the neocortex runs many parallel models that each learn the world through motor-sensory interaction.

Perception is an active process of prediction: the brain constantly guesses what it is touching or seeing and updates with new input. Learning happens through movement and correction, touch, anticipate, adjust, understand.

The probes translate this principle into an ethnographic toolkit for eliciting lived experience and material memory directly from the communities a project serves.