GMU:Art and Biomedia/Frederic Blais-Belanger

In Symbiosis with Pyrocystis

For this project, I want to create a platform where Pyrocystis fusiformis and the viewer will be able to socially interact by the forms of sound and dance. Navigating Donna Haraway idea of making kin with the Earth-bounded, I aim to bring the viewer to looking at the micro-organism in a different way, and making them both work in symbiosis.

In a dark space, I intend to invite the viewer to perform some movements that will be transcode into vibrations for the phytoplankton. As a feedback, it will emit light that will then generate sounds, feeding the dance of the participant. This feedback loop will thus become a conversation that, like dance, will demand a mutual respect from both parties and a constant attention to the partner in order to find a certain synchronism.

Inspirations

• “Who and whatever we are, we need to make-with—become-with, compose-with—the earth-bound.”, Donna Haraway
• “We must stop seeing tech and nature as sparring partners, and start concentrating on how helping them to dance.”, Molly Flatt, BBC, 2015

Bibliography

• Haraway, Donna. Staying with the Trouble, Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016.
• Tsing, Anna. The Mushroom at the End of the World. Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2015.

Experimentation and Research

• Pyrocystis fusiformis GMU:DIY Bio: doing things with biology/Frederic Blais-Belanger
• Max Jitter/MSP GMU:Connecting Max to the World/Frederic Blais-Belanger