Xibipíío II – Code and Anticode
The Xibipíío [ pronounced: ee bee peo ] is the limit of perception, and this in the language of the Pirahã, a people living on the Amazon. What is striking about the culture of the Pirahã is two things - first, their explicit refusal to accept knowledge that they cannot attest to themselves, and second, that they are the happiest people in the world. Much of their attitude has to do with their consistent refusal to encode things or generalize them into formulas, while our Western cultures cultivate just the opposite, creating the conditions for the development of the digital in the first place. Embedded in a seemingly infinite digital space, an avatar ponders similarities that are recognizable at second glance between the Pirahã and the tribe of scientists whom he perceives in this way. At the same time, in Xibipíío II, the digital space also becomes a real space that can be entered and physically experienced, thus redeeming something of the Pirahã's demand for concreteness. Polarity and fusion of man and machine are reflected in contrasts and surprising congruencies of cultures that at first seem completely foreign.
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