The story of life is always one of change, of how organisms adapt, mingle, cooperate, or compete to survive. Speculating about what the species inhabiting the planet in future will be like, the relations among them, and what strategies they will develop to inhabit the world is also a way of reflecting on how we live and how we relate with our surroundings and with other species, right now, in the present. As science fiction has amply demonstrated, fables and fantasy are powerful tools for thinking critically about the world.
We therefore suggest imagining other forms of life able to inhabit places that are inhospitable for humans, from the frozen, radioactive, arid surface of the planet Mars to the oceans of a wounded planet Earth, threatened by the climate crisis. We shall do this by means of stop motion animation exercises and also artificial intelligence. Each of the exercises we propose will be presented with some key ideas about evolutionary biology which the biologist Alex Richter-Boix has put together to help us make decisions in the process of creating these new life forms.
