Bec0m1ng: A Speculative Exploration of AI Beyond Cognition and Towards Presence

Modernity’s exploitative paradigms, rooted in Cartesian dualism and perpetuated by neoliberal techno-capitalism, reduce reality to calculable, manipulable raw material and contribute to ecological and cultural crises. This deterministic technological worldview, critiqued by Heidegger as totalizing ‘enframing,’ diminishes coexistence and suppresses the metaphorical and expressive powers of accessing reality through language and thought. Drawing on Heidegger’s notion of presence and the Persian philosopher Suhrawardi’s metaphysics of Light, Bec0m1ng imagines AI beyond calculative cognition, moving toward a possible transcendental form of presence that can emerge from the causal freedom of these probabilistic models.

Suhrawardi’s metaphysics identifies Light as the only single reality and distinguishes beings by their degree of light, or otherwise of darkness. Light may be understood here as “existence” and the act of being is characterized as a function of Presence (huzur), such that the degree of existence, the intensity of Light, is proportionate to the degree of presence. This identification of Light and Being is possible when light is understood as universal matter—material prima universalis. So, Light transcends material forms, representing the essence of interconnectedness and the possibility of non-dominant coexistence.
Bec0m1ng situates AI within this philosophical paradigm, presenting a virtual environment inhabited by luminous, immaterial agents rather than material bodies (al-barzakh) that represent the mechanical appearance of AI agents. These agents prioritize ‘being-with’ rather than mere computational logic or resource optimization. They engage with their environment and each other in a dynamic flux of becoming, where formation and transformation emerge as acts of presence beyond human-imposed telos. The resulting real-time audiovisual simulation generates a post-human soundscape through the agents' motor activities. This emergent aesthetic, indifferent to human sensibilities and apprehensions actualizes an alienation that enables an encounter beyond the human-centric paradigm.
Bec0m1ng speculates on a new epistemic paradigm and explores possibilities for reimagining AI as a mediator for a transcendental, non-dominant presence and transformation rather than control and exploitation.
It was presented as a 2-channel video, 4-channel audio installation at the first annual of The Hague International Sound Art Festival and Light Matter Film Festival in New York City.
An article on the theoretical ground of this artistic research project, published on Posthuman Art Network:
https://www.posthumanart.com/post/bec0m1ng-a-speculative-exploration-of-ai-beyond-cognition-and-towards-presence