EightOS /∞OS/ is an open-source operating system for the bodymind that has been developed by Dmitry Paranyushkin and Kirikoo Des since 2016. Inspired by Systema martial art, Butoh, Noguchi Taiso, contemporary dance, music, and technology, we created a branch of movement research dedicated to exploring the potential of collective physical experience to affect habitual patterns of behavior. We started hosting regular sessions in Paris and Berlin around 2015 and 2016 and gradually developed a community of movement researchers with various backgrounds who joined us for regular training and practice exchange sessions.

The initial focus of the practice, during the first iteration, was to develop a set of habits, tools, and patterns that promote adaptability, resilience, and evolutionary development – both on the personal (user) level and in society at large. We were also very much focused on developing a community around the practice, in order to help it grow and evolve.

The core principle of ∞OS is a wave: a build-up or escalation [1] is followed by conservation (assimilation) [2], which is followed by release [3], followed by reorganization (redirection and dissipation) [4], followed by a new process of escalation (response) [1] – like an ∞ (8).

∞OS uses the metaphor of software that runs on the hardware of the human body and that is the primary scale it operates at. Human body is a vessel for discovering, understanding, storing and transmitting information. Life itself has been shaped by evolution and contains many efficient strategies for dealing with the constantly changing world – both on the micro level (biology) and on the macro level (social dynamics). We distill and extract those principles and then systematize them into coherent frameworks, algorithms and procedures, which can be applied in a variety of contexts: from everyday life and intersubjective relations to management and governance.

In our lab sessions we explore various physical, psychological and behavioral patterns in order to challenge our limits and enhance our perception, endurance and adaptability. We hack our own psyche and physicality, playing with it and surprising ourselves with the new outcomes.

In order to do that, we use various bodymind practices, such as Systema martial art, which trains endurance and adaptability, both on the physical and psychological levels. We also apply principles from many other body / cognitive practices, including Noguchi Taiso, aerodynamics, nonlinear dynamics, motion capture, Butoh, Techno, contemporary dance, network science, biology and life sciences, various technological tools, fiction – everything that can stimulate our imagination and expand our horizons.

To learn more about ∞OS basic principles and how they can be applied in real life, you can see the 8OS website, Nodus Labs online course “∞OS Body/Mind Operating System: Learning to Modulate Conflict Dynamics” and join our weekly sessions in Berlin.