To Know a Tree: Symbiotic Mutualism and Artistic Exploration against Anthropocentric Science

Looking across the art-science nexus, the contribution discovers an emerging symbiotic mutualism that goes against mere inter-species tolerance of the posthuman perspective. This new understanding of symbiosis may be described as a transaction, both physical or factual in scientific terms, and arguably symbolical in the artistic sense. Therefore, different combinations of art-science and human-tree relationships shall be revealed along the treatment of one primary and four secondary cases of sciartistic practice, all revolving around trees as oldest, biggest, most globally spread life forms, still quite foreign to humans. Taming the Forest is an ongoing interdisciplinary project, chartering a cross field among bioeconomy, cultural history, policy, and art(ivism). In the context of this paper, it acts as the case for researching the conflicting narratives of history and economy about biodiversity in general, and specifically on forests that represent a most massive entity of manifold exchange, and thus a field of inevitable symbiosis with humans (as well). The contribution further shows how different blends of methodologies in artistic-cum-scientific research can become truly relevant for both of their respective realms, opening new creative pathways that combine radical thinking and post-human research formats, embedded into critical use of technologies.