The Cerebral Samba: Protocol Art, Worldbuilding & Our Two Brains

Peter Bauman argues that protocol art and worldbuilding externalize the brain's two hemispheres: the left hemisphere's urge to formalize reality into rules, and the right hemisphere's urge to inhabit it as an open environment. Drawing on Iain McGilchrist's view of the divided brain, Bauman places artists on a sliding scale, with Primavera De Filippi's Plantoid as a protocol instantiator, Trevor Paglen's ImageNet Roulette as protocol critique, and Jakob Kudsk Steensen's The Song Trapper as worldbuilding. Bauman says these practices make the brain's operations visible and shareable.