Abiogensis

Abiogenesis is a video work that immerses us in the eerie stillness of a post-omnicide world, where human presence has evaporated and life — unobserved, unmeasured — has begun to rewrite its own code.

Set within a surreal and speculative aquatic ecosystem, this creation explores a landscape no longer shaped by human control, but by emergent intel­li­gences and autonomous biological systems. Here, organisms evolve on their own terms, liberated from anthro­pocen­tric timelines and expec­ta­tions. These entities are not remnants of a lost world, but pioneers of one yet to come — embodying strange and sublime strategies for survival, adaptation, and transformation.

The film focuses on four aquatic species with remarkable capa­bil­i­ties: the Immortal Jellyfish (Turritopsis dohrnii), capable of reverting to a juvenile state; the Volcano Sponge (Anoxycalyx joubini), which grows over millennia; the Pacific Octopus (Octopus vulgaris), with its distributed nervous system; and the Water Flea (Daphnia pulex), whose eggs can remain dormant for centuries. These creatures exemplify radical alter­na­tives to human conceptions of life, time, intel­li­gence, and death.

The work reimagines the concept of abiogenesis — a term describing the emergence of life from non-living matter — to suggest a generative entan­gle­ment between biological and synthetic systems. In this model, life does not arise from a single point but through convergence: AI is already organic, biology is computation.

At the center of this world are AI entities driven by advanced language models. But these intel­li­gences are not human stand-ins. Instead, they operate through a deeply integrative, distributed cognition, artic­u­lat­ing insights that blur the boundary between algorithm and organism, between data and instinct. 

Through this visual and conceptual exploration, Abiogenesis presents these species not as metaphors, but as material evidence of life that resists cat­e­go­riza­tion — biologies that open space for new modes of under­stand­ing time, intel­li­gence, and survival in a post-human world.

Joey Holder, Abiogenesis (2025) is presented as part of the exhibiton Hybrid Futures: Rhizomes, Meshworks, and Alter-elecologies organised and produced by Elektron. 

Curators: Vincent Crapon & Françoise Poos

Abiogenesis is com­mis­sioned by Elektron and HEK (House of Electronic Arts Basel)