SYMBIOPUNK

Symbiopunk is a method, process and mode of futuring that foregrounds multispecies collaboration and interdependence. Intended to contribute to the creation of the Symbiocene, it replaces myths of human exceptionalism with a celebration of the messy mutualism of earth ecologies.

Inspired by Lynn Margulis' symbiosis, Glenn Albrechts Symbiocene and founded in the affirmative ethics of Posthumanism, Symbiopunk identifies the future as only emerging through cooperative cooperative and collaborative efforts between diverse species. In her work, Lyn Margulis identifies that the history of earthly life is founded in symbiotic engagement across scales and species. Glenn Albrecht has proposed the Symbiocene as an epoch to follow and replace the anthropocene. The symbiocene is defined by the full reintegration of humans into natural systems emotionally, technologocally and psychologically. Positioned between Margulis and Albrecht, between the ecologic violence and hopeful horizons, Symbiopunk is a intended as a futuring tool. An idealogical, practical and aspirational framework to sow the chaos of the present with the seeds of symbiotic futures and actively contribute to the generation of the Symbiocene. Repositioning the human as one species amongst 8.7 million, Symbiopunk asserts that earth futures are wholly dependent on reciprocal, equitable and mutualistic practices that unreservedly center the inclusion and care for all planetary life.  

Extending the efforts begun through the formation of Hopepunk and Solarpunk, Symbiopunk is similarly interested in affirmative visions of ecologically sound, flourishing futures. Symbiopunk critiques the antrhopocentric habits which persist in Hope and Solar punk visions, insisting on repopulating the foreground of stories with the many legged, winged and leafed companions who are present in all human histories and who will shape their futures. As the urgency to think, act and care beyond the human rises, Symbiopunk experiments with visions of healthy planetary futures that make visible and celebrate the diverse knowledges of a flocking, flowing, spawning and sporulating planet.

Taking its cue from the posthuman, Symbiopunk begins from an expanded sense of self, an understanding that any individual life and/or body is facilitated by collaborative, multiscalar coalitions of diverse species. As such that 'self' also extends into the environment in which it is embedded- inhaling, leaking, absorbing and digesting all it comes into contact with. It affirms that the human who constructs or visions any future is themselves a futuring assemblage, a multispecies consortia. As such, any possible future created from this form is a cooperative interspecies affair and must reflect the presence of all active communities, regardless of their size or species. The human has always been a collaborative symbitotic affair, and so any future that contains humans will continue this rhythm. This is the basis for the symbiopunk maxim: 'only the symbiotic survive'.

In response to a global poly-crisis, Symbiopunk is intended as a critical tool and an applied method, urging deliberate, transformative perspectives, actions, and practices. It is a creative endeavour within a collective, multispecies coalition—a regenerative force envisaging a Symbiocene where all terrestrial life thrives.

 Rejecting trends of passive contemplation or theorising, Symbiopunk is necessarily active and intended as a verb to be performed rather than promised.

It references any futures oriented thinking that actively centers champions multispecies worlds and perspectives, and it insists on practices that are modelled by the ancient wisdom of non-human systems, that which is regenerative, slow, iterative, inclusive, co-operative, adaptive, non-hierarchical and relational.

This cultivated symbiotic ethos is intended to disrupt colonial and capitalistic notions of stability or sustainability. Instead, it errs on the side of evolution, embracing ongoing states of change and celebrating the opportunity to continually reimagine itself, as modelled by the continuing adaptation and evolution of all planetary life. It refuses and rejects narratives or practices of stasis, does not recognise validation or gravitas often applied to practices that have demonstrated longevity, and instead celebrates and centres ideas that continue to emerge, reconfigure or merge. Symbiopunk recognises that all earthly things and beings emerge in iterative cycles, emergence, decay and rebirth; it acknowledges that change is the only constant and looks to disruption as an opportunity for novel alliances, new collaborations, new pathways, and principals to be experimented with.

Symbiopunk principals acknowledge and defend nature's inviolable rights; it commits to the representation of communities beyond humanity as equal agents endowed with intricate interior lives and cultures, and a multimodal approach to knowledge generation. They celebrate multitudinous forms of knowledge generation, as modelled by and utilised for engaging with multibeing practices and peoples, including intuitive knowledge, story-based knowledge, imaginative knowledge, situated knowledge, embodied knowledge and ancestral knowledge. They celebrate non-human brilliance across species and systems as teachers for practising flourishing futures across vast timescales that well exceed those of humans.

Symbiopunk makes an ongoing effort to work outside, across, behind, within and underneath disciplines to foreground these perspectives for the benefit of all.