ABSTRACT
The mimic octopus has the ability to copy the physical likeness and movement of over fifteen other sea creatures—both animate and inanimate—as protection from predators, including such varied "species" as sea snakes, lionfish, sea stars, sea shells, stingrays, jellyfish, and even rocks. It accomplishes this through complex transformations of its coloration and physical structure. A single foam unit was used to study the performative logic of the octopus' mimicry, which included scalar transformation, limb extension, body stretching, and squeezing. As this tectonic mimicry unfolds, open and enclosed spaces are created and modified from unit to unit, producing an adaptive and morphologically flexible membrane field. This field begins to suggest a reading of the city as an equally adaptive cultural infrastructure, in which buildings respond to the ever-changing desires of their occupants. Linkages and voids conserve and sustain the balance of the system, which would otherwise disappear into the existing fabric of the city.
