Tuesday, April 03, 2018

Video documentation: Nonhuman Agents in Art, Culture and Theory - 6th panel

Endosymbiosis and Sympoiesis
#Lynn Margulis #symbiotic relationships #horizontal gene transfer #autopoiesis and sympoiesis
Moderator: Desiree Förster




Daniel Renato Lammel (Institute of Biology, Free University Berlin)
Endosymbiosis and "Love Stories" between Plants and Microorganisms


It has been 50 years since Lynn Margulis proposed the endosymbiont hypothesis. She brought light upon the origin of organelles in eukaryotic cells, proposing that mitochondria and plastids evolved from symbiosis with bacteria. Molecular biology analyses have brought more evidence supporting that, even if no experiments have definitely proved it. However, it is well known in science that several plants form endosymbiosis with bacteria and fungi. Per definition: Endosymbiosis, noun, symbiosis in which one of the symbiotic organisms lives inside the other; and love, noun, 1. a strong feeling of affection; 2. a great interest and pleasure in something. 3. feel deep affection or sexual love for. This talk will play about how some bacteria and fungi interact with plants to form endosymbiosis, and how complex, specific, beautiful and important for life on earth it is.


Laura Benítez Valero (Institute of Philosophy, Autonomous University of Barcelona)
Biosophy and Mutagenesis. Towards an Alien Sym_poiesis


The use of Biosophy andthe return to Spinoza's contributions is to seek an alternative to avoid ideal-materialisms. What we could name as ontological immanence is an essentially anti-hierarchical proposal, in terms of Deleuze, because all being, étant, exercises as much being, être, as there is in it. A becoming of beings in being. This subversive potential, all beings are the same, se valent, all being(s)_thing(s) of being, être, are the same in their difference, is connected not only to some (com)post_human discourses but also to symbiogenesis. Lynn Margulis remarked “physical contact is a non-negotiable requisite for many differing kinds of life” (1998), so as long as we are very much part of Nature we are entangled by a symbiotic toxic interdependence. The potentia of some biohacking and artistic proposals working with_in non-human agents relies in anti-individualistic perspectives. Then, could we think on sym_poiesis as a material discourse phenomena, materialising in intra-action with other material discourses apparatuses? An alien mutagenesis?

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