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.

Project supported by DocLab R&D Program. 

Presented in collaboration with Eye Xtended.