Symbiotic Earth was screened on May 24, 2020 as a part of the Streaming Festival which opened the ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe exhibition CRITICAL ZONES: Observatories for Earthly Politics. The screening was the culminating event of the three day festival of virtual workshops, talks, and video streams. The festival and exhibit were curated by philosopher, anthropologist, sociologist Bruno Latour and post-conceptual artist Peter Weibel.

The film screening was preceded by two introductory events. Prof. Bruce Clarke presented a talk entitled Lynn Margulis: Life, Symbiosis and Gaia. Prof. Clarke is the author of the forthcoming book Gaian Systems: Lynn Margulis, Neocybernetics and the End of the Anthropocene. Filmmaker John Feldman gave a videotaped introduction to the film.

Peter Weibel reports that the festival was a great success. “Our live Streaming-Festival had an enthusiastic response. 1.000 participants everyday on telegram chat and 30.000 visitors during the three days. In addition, a lot of congratulating emails from many academics, artists and intellectuals.”

In addition to discussions, lectures, and films, the program consisted of streamed guided tours through the virtual spaces as well as through the real, but not publicly accessible, exhibition at the museum in Karlsruhe, Germany. The festival was presented virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic. The discussions and virtual gallery tours were recorded and can be viewed on the ZKM website.

You can view John Feldman’s introduction to the ZKM CRITICAL ZONES screening of Symbiotic Earth on Vimeo.