Posthuman Perspectives
Dr Stephanie Cussans Moran
Dr Cussans Moran’s interdisciplinary research and practice is grounded in ecofeminist posthumanism and animal studies. Her work engages with cognitive literary theory, ecological psychology and zoology. She works on projects across academia, art and industry; with zoologists, ecologists, data scientists and other animals. She writes about molluscs, art, science fiction and AI; she paints in oils, pixels and language.
Cussans Moran completed her 3D3-funded PhD at Transtechnology Research in 2023 with a thesis titled ‘Octopus Optics: a Cross-Disciplinary Investigation of Human Visual Bias in Narrative with Corresponding Writing Experiments using Animal Focalisation’. She holds a Postgraduate Diploma from Cyprus College of Art and an MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College, London. She is Art Editor at The Ecological Citizen, a peer-reviewed ecological open access journal and was previously a Board Member of the Innovation Advisory Council for Wales (IACW) (2022-2024). She is also a professional Research Analyst specialising in narrative, qual & quant data analysis.
She was recently a Senior Fellow at RIFS (Research Institute for Sustainability) in Potsdam, Germany, investigating freshwater infrastructures and imaginaries through transspecies, translocal and transhistorical lenses.
Projects 2014-2017 are archived here. The ISCRI (InterSpecies Communication Initiative) project (2018-2023) is archived here. And the Marmite Prize project, co-founded and -directed by Stephanie (with Marcus Cope) from 2006-2013 is no longer online but can be found on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, here.
Selected Exhibitions
Selected Talks & Publications
’Sensus Materia’ at The Chapel, Beeches Green, Stroud UK. 2024.
‘Pearl’, presentation and installation, at Digital Flow/s: 3D3 legacy symposium, the Watershed and Sparks, Bristol UK. 2023.
‘Interspecies Disco’, performance at CGP Gallery Bermondsey, London. 2018.
‘Swamp Living’ immersive interspecies storytelling workshop. IMT Gallery, London. 2018.
‘Domain of Sensible Knowledge’, ASC Gallery, London 2017. Co-curated with Cynthia Cruz.
‘Supersensory Encounters’, Performance with Chris Hind. Supernormal Arts and Music Festival, Oxfordshire. 2017.
‘Myth Material’, TAP / The Old Waterworks, Southend 2016. Co-curated with Cynthia Cruz.
‘BC Time-Slip (the Empire Never Ended)’, collaborative research residency and exhibition, Dynamo Arts Association, Vancouver, Canada. 2016.
‘Autocatalytic Future Games’, No Format Gallery, London 2015. Curated by Playpaint.
‘Transmètic: Ordonnance’, Lewisham Art House, London 2015.
Goldsmiths MFA Exhibition, London 2014.
‘Art/Converters’, studio 1.1, London. 2014.
Billboard Painting, Supernormal Festival, Oxfordshire 2014.
‘Hey! Narcissus!’, studio 1.1, London 2013.
‘Untitled 1: Glitch’, Peacock Yard, London 2013.
‘8 Studios From Here’, Deptford X Art Festival, London 2013.
‘Elvis: I Love You Because’, A-Side B-Side Gallery, London 2013.
‘studio 1.4’ Artandtrade and Papierfabrik, Graz, Austria; Exterritorial Vienna, Austria 2012.
‘Cluster II’, SW1 Gallery, curated by Mas Civiles 2012.
‘Civil Twilight: Desire and Difference in Contemporary Painting Practices’, Boetzelaer|Nispen Gallery, London 2011.
‘Beyond Fontana’, studio 1.1, London 2010.
‘Another Time Another Place’, Five Years Gallery, London 2010.
‘Tag: From 3 to 36’, Brown Gallery, London 2010.
‘Octopus Optics and Mussel Memories: communicating and contextualising mollusc conservation research through artistic projects outside the museum’, Euromal 2024, the 10th European Congress of Malacological Societies. Heraklion, Crete, Greece.
‘Parasitic Visuality: Computer Vision AI and Freshwater Mussels‘. POM [Politics of Machines] Aachen 2024.
Hogan, A.; Moran S.C.; Hogan K., Barker B., Woodall R. 2024. Can websites reveal the extent and degree to which a business’s values reflect national policy? A text embeddings approach. In: 6th International Conference on Advanced Research Methods and Analytics (CARMA 2024). Valencia, 26-28 June 2024. https://doi.org/10.4995/CARMA2024.2024.17801
‘What can art do for ecological thinking?‘ The Ecological Citizen 5(2): 103–8. July 2022.
’Mantic Staining: the Divinatory Paintings of Ithell Colquhoun’ (co-author). The Fenris Wolf Issue no. 11, Abrahamssom and Sinclair (eds.). 2022.
’Crow Black’, catalogue essay, Darkness at Noon, curated by Ruth Calland at APT Gallery, London. November 2021.
’Strange Relations: Exploring Interspecies Communication through AI and the Arts’, FIBER Festival, Netherlands. With Maggie Roberts. November 2021.
’Communicating Between Two Alien Intelligences Through Art’, Art Machines 2, Hong Kong. With Maggie Roberts. July 2021.
’Rethinking communication with other life forms’, The Marine Biologist magazine (Marine Biological Association UK). Co-author. July 2021.
’Exploring the Pluriverse: Fictioning, Science and Interspecies Communication’, Ecocene: Cappadocia Journal of Environmental Humanities. Co-authored with Maggie Roberts. July 2021.
’Eco-Sci-Fi Art and Interspecies Technology‘, Vector no. 292, Special issue on Speculative Art (Journal of the British Sci-fi Association), pp.8-11. Fall 2020.
’Eco-Sci-Fi’, Stuart Hall Research Network, Iniva, London. With art collective Keiken February 2020.
’Visual Democratisation: AR and the Underpass Festival’, co-authored with Christian Tilt and Alexander Hogan. Proceedings of EVA London 2019.
‘Through-ness: Structures for Feedback’, Interview with artist Annabelle Craven Jones in Alembic exhibition catalogue, pp.94-101, edited by Sarah Jury, Helen Kaplinsky & Lucy Sames. Res. Gallery, London, June 2018.
‘Coding the Digital Occult’, Occulture Berlin. November 2018.
Mollusc Realism 