Abstract
The virtual reality installation Symbiosis (Polymorf 2020) is a performative,
multisensory, multiuser, multispecies, and interpassive storytelling experience inspired by Donna Haraway’s book Staying with the Trouble (2016). It
offers a speculative world set somewhere 200 years in the future, after a
human-caused climate disaster has changed the Earth beyond recognition.
The world’s population consists of so-called “children of compost” or
“symbionts.” The installation allows six participants to simultaneously
embody one of six symbiotic life forms. Each experience comes with a
uniquely designed soft robotic wearable enabling participants not only to
see, hear, and feel but also to smell and taste their symbiotic experiences.
In this way, Symbiosis becomes a passionate imagining of how to make
kin in the Chthulucene.
multisensory, multiuser, multispecies, and interpassive storytelling experience inspired by Donna Haraway’s book Staying with the Trouble (2016). It
offers a speculative world set somewhere 200 years in the future, after a
human-caused climate disaster has changed the Earth beyond recognition.
The world’s population consists of so-called “children of compost” or
“symbionts.” The installation allows six participants to simultaneously
embody one of six symbiotic life forms. Each experience comes with a
uniquely designed soft robotic wearable enabling participants not only to
see, hear, and feel but also to smell and taste their symbiotic experiences.
In this way, Symbiosis becomes a passionate imagining of how to make
kin in the Chthulucene.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Ecogames |
| Subtitle of host publication | Playful Perspectives on the Climate Crisis |
| Editors | Op de Beke Laura, Joost Raessens, Stefan Werning, Gerald Farca |
| Place of Publication | Amsterdam |
| Publisher | Amsterdam University Press |
| Chapter | 17 |
| Pages | 373-394 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Volume | 1 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-94-6372-119-6 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2024 |
Publication series
| Name | Green Media |
|---|
Keywords
- virtual reality
- Anthropocene
- Capitalocene
- Symbiocene
- climate disaster
- refraction
