Symbiosis

At the heart of the five-day Shaping Bonds program is the unique performative, multiuser and multisensory VR installation that premiered at IDFA DocLab in 2021. From Wednesday 19 to Sunday 23 March, you can book a 45-minute time-slot to experience Symbiosis.

Inspired by science philosopher Donna Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble, this virtual reality experience for multiple users and multiple senses transports you to about 200 years in the future. On the ruins of the Anthropocene, humanity has made way for a rich biotope teeming with mixed life-forms: human, animal, and machine hybrids. There is no competition, only symbiosis.

This performative VR experience allows participants to embody one of these symbiotic, human-animal, human-plant, or human-technological life forms. How do a slime mold, a monarch butterfly, a Colorado toad, an orchid, or an AI “think” or experience life? By overcoming our anthropocentric perspective, can we actually start thinking-with, living-with, and being-with other planetary organisms in a world that does not ignore how much ecological trouble it is in?

To complete their symbiosis, the virtual world that participants are presented with is augmented with scent, soft-robotics, and food-snacks created by restaurant Karpendonkse Hoeve.

SYMBIOSIS is designed and produced by Polymorf in collaboration with Studio Biarritz. Find the full credits here.