I Become Tentacle, We Become "Tentacus": A Mixed Reality Ritual for Distributed Bodies and Collective Minds

Inspired by the octopus’s distributed neurophysiology, Tentacus is a mixed reality artistic ritual that weaves multiple persons into a decentralized intelligence and collective embodiment. In this ritual, Tentacus "awakens"—a collective being composed of distributed bodies (dancers) that forms neither a centralized individual nor a mere aggregate, but rather a dynamic, fluid, tentacular intelligence. Each dancer becomes a tentacle: the left hand grips a circular ring, symbolizing continuous kinship; the right hand wears a soft-textile "tentacle" glove with an embedded smartphone whose LiDAR sensor functions as a spatial motion tracker and whose vibration motor acts as a vibrotactile actuator. Each right "tentacle" continuously detects environmental terrain through proximity sensing and broadcasts haptic waves to neighboring dancers’ actuators. These proximity-touch data are transformed in real time into luminous point clouds, inscribed on a public display against a pre-scanned 3D Gaussian representation of the site, enabling spectators to witness Tentacus as it senses and remembers. Grounded in Donna Haraway’s Chthulucene "tentacular thinking" and Margrit Shildrick’s call to "Embody the Monster", the piece elevates felt knowing over visual dominance. It manifests a protocol of multi-person shared control through distributed sensing, cross-body inference, and negotiated motion, nurturing more-than-human awareness.