How does a creature without a brain think? During the one-day biohacking workshop held in March 2023 in Sofia, participants — including artists, philosophers, and other humanities-oriented enthusiasts with no prior background in biology — got to literally touch one of the strangest and most inspiring organisms on the planet. Physarum polycephalum, known as slime mold, is a single-celled organism capable of finding the shortest path through a maze, “remembering” where it has already been, and even solving simple optimization problems — without a single neuron.

During the workshop, participants learned the basics of working with slime mold — from feeding and cultivating it, through observing its movement and reactions to various stimuli, to conducting a simple yet spectacular experiment in which it demonstrated its remarkable ability to map space. The day unfolded through a mix of theoretical and hands-on activities, in an atmosphere of experimentation, play, exploration, and inspiration. For participants with a humanities and artistic background, this was a rare opportunity to encounter biology not as an abstract science, but as living material for the imagination — material that is already inspiring artists, architects, and designers around the world.

Beyond the lab experiment itself, the workshop became an occasion to reconsider concepts such as “intelligence,” “navigation,” and “behavior” beyond the human and even the non-human animal mind. The day closed with an open discussion and exchange of impressions, weaving together questions of a biological, philosophical, and aesthetic nature.