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Symbiosis
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Symbiosis
IDFA 2021

Symbiosis

Marcel van Brakel, Mark Meeuwenoord
Netherlands
2021
20 min
World Premiere
Festival history

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.

Credits
Director
Created by
    Polymorf
    Polymorf
Co-production
    Studio Biarritz
    Studio Biarritz
Key collaborator
    STRP,
    Karpendonkse Hoeve,
    TEC Books,
    Breda Photo
    STRP,
    Karpendonkse Hoeve,
    TEC Books,
    Breda Photo
Animation
    Edwin Kuipers,
    Martijn Zandvliet
    Edwin Kuipers,
    Martijn Zandvliet
Designer
Developer
Narration
    Louise Porter,
    Molly O'Blivion,
    Holly Habstritt Gaal,
    Anahita Mekanik
    Louise Porter,
    Molly O'Blivion,
    Holly Habstritt Gaal,
    Anahita Mekanik

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