Cornaptychus

Like Stapledon¹, I seem to think about high technology in terms of prehistoric shapes. This is how I found out about the cornaptychus, the mouth part of a specific fossilized mollusk.

I knew it would make a dynamic sculpture. But after placing it on a pedestal of tentacle-forms, I began thinking about it like an archaeologist.

Is it a piece of technology or an organism? Can it be both? I have created a pearloid-like material to render several of such biomorphic artifacts, roughly dating them to a far future.

I like to think that they hint at a planet grown whole, blurring the boundary between individuals and species in their ambiguity.