Symbiont::MyceliOhms is a hyphal node of the Symbiosis/\Dysbiosis project presented during the Goethe Institute's New Nature Climate Science Exchange between Canada, Germany, Mexico and the US. The piece imagines a microbial old-growth forest environment. They share concepts of forest sentience, mycelial communications, and how humans are connected to the shared Terrestrial environment and ultimately to each other.

Symbionts vary according to the types of relationships they share with their host. These relationships are generally described by whether they are helpful or harmful to both parties.

With the word, or term MyceliOhms I am thinking about mycelial frequency, fluctuations and oscillations. Bio-electrical output distributed throughout a forest environment, from tree to tree, between ecto-mycorrhizal roots. 

 

- Clairaudience, hearing something that is not present to the ear but regarded as having objective reality.  Similar to psychoacoustics.

- Listening with someone else's ears. I think of nonhuman flora and fauna (and now funga) and their perception of our shared environments. Indeed, I do this through an anthropomorphic lens. Perhaps this speaks of embodiment, conscious listening akin to Paulin Oliveros's Deep Listening.

 

I view my research and work in forest sentience and fungal mycelium as archival rather than extractive. Soundscape ecology, also known as acoustic ecology or eco-acoustics is the study of the acoustic relationships between living organisms and their environment. It focuses on how sounds of different origins shape the world around them and how life is influenced by its auditory environment. Acoustic ecology, the study of soundscapes, reveals how human activities and environmental changes alter natural soundscapes, potentially impacting biodiversity and ecosystem function, and highlights the need for soundscape conservation.

 

To paraphrase Donna Haraway, How do we better recognize "more-than-human" modes of life without anthropomorphizing nonhuman life? How do we practice care, freedom, justice, and equality with nonhumans? How do we mobilize a broad front to demand more just environmental politics? This is not a task for one individual, but a collective effort that we all must contribute to 1.

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Similarly to Haraway, I draw inspiration from Astrida Neimanis's thoughts on 'representation without colonization. This concept challenges the ethics and politics of humans who position themselves as spokespeople for nonhuman beings, without imposing their own perspectives or interests. It's a call for respectful and non-exploitative representation of nonhuman entities.

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Our research and understanding of nonhuman entities can shape a more hopeful future. We need to learn from trees and forests. We need to practice a politics of solidarity with nonhumans. Of course, terminology is always tricky when discussing nonhumans, and "solidarity" might even sound politically problematic in this context. However, this solidarity is not from "above"; it's not pity, sympathy, or Christian love. Instead, the solidarity reaches across racial, class, gender, and generational lines and the human-nonhuman divide—the solidarity of "being present in the other." One example of this solidarity is recent multispecies ethnographic research, which enables humans to envision new ways to comprehend nonhumans. Without this understanding, the only common ground that humans and nonhumans will have is a planetary future without us. Let's work together to change that future.