Symbiosis/\Dysbiosis: Sentience
Main Creators
Tosca Terán aka nano
Nanotopia
Tosca Terán aka Nanotopia (She/They) (b. 1966, San Francisco, California) -Terán's work explores environmental consciousness and speculative futures through soundscapes and bioart installations. Her groundbreaking collaborations with fungal Mycelium involve quantizing the bio-electrical activity from non-human organisms, inspiring new ways of understanding our interconnectedness.
I have been striving to create an experience that effectively bridges the gap between our perceptions of ourselves and nature as separate. The proposed XR installation is a step towards achieving that through scientific research, whimsical storytelling, EEG, and the bio-electrical activity of living Mycelium.
While technologists may discuss the Singularity, a convergence of humans with AI and machines, the true Singularity we need to move towards is synchronization and harmony with our shared environment. As Donna Haraway eloquently puts it, this is our multi-species muddle, which we must embrace.
Andrei Gravelle aka Apook
nanotopia
Andrei M. Gravelle (they/them) (b.1965, Ottawa, Canada)
- Gravelle is a frequent collaborator with Tosca Terán and is the other half of the performance entity, NANOTOPIA. Their fascination with sound and perception extends to a body of musical work that creates immersive sonic environments, virtual soundtracks for worlds and places that are born of imagination and wanderlust to the unknown.
I believe that inasmuch as storytelling brings people together, that merging biodata with interactive experience can extend this concept of togetherness to the visceral acknowledgement of our interconnectedness as holobionts.
Sven Steffens aka Rixx
The Tech Director
Sven Steffens (he/him) (b. 1989, Berlin, Germany)
- Steffens is an engineer specializing in IoT devices in renewable energy. In his free time, he bridges the digital and physical realms by building virtual worlds in VR, primarily as a member of Creator Jam (www.creatorjam.org). In 2023, he first collaborated with Tosca Terán during the award ceremony for a competition held by Creator Jam.
I am excited to be part of this project, as it aligns with my interests in the intersection of nature and technology. Sentience explores a world where humans coexist with nature rather than dominating it, which is crucial for going into the future.
Brendan Lehman aka Neurochems
The Neuroscientist
Brendan Lehman aka Neurochems (they/them; b.1988, Toronto, Canada)
- Lehman is a neuroscientist, game developer, media artist, and arts programmer. Their projects in biodata-driven software development, interactive installation, and game curation aim to capture contexts of togetherness and help people connect with themselves, each other, and their natural environment in new and meaningful ways.
Our use of biodata to augment digital experience provides a unique opportunity to centre the qualia of one's experience to themselves and the environmental conditions that make such experiences so. I am interested in the liminality of the micro context, and the universality of meaning at physical scale.
In 2020, Brendan began collaborating with Tosca during the New Nature Climate Science Exchange hosted by the Goethe Institut Montreal where her Symbiosis/Dysbiosis presentation was awarded R&D funding.
