Conversations with the Mangrove—a speculative design proposition towards a sympoiesis with extended digital and physical ecologies.

This paper, presented as a hybrid of creative practice-based research and critical enquiry, asks the question: “How might we, through creative interventions and critical design practice, form intervening positions of and for more-than-human communication?” It introduces a proposed speculative design methodology of Xenomancy, and demonstrates this in practice along with a number of its methods.“Conversations with the Mangrove” is seeking to understand and engage with the more-than-human networks of both digital and physical ecologies. The process involves building relationships with diverse entities, including animals, trees, and rivers, through methods such as walking the landscape, recording, and engaging with digital tools as means of reflection and divination. The goal is to find voices in these networks, acknowledging the impossibility of fully capturing their complexity. The project emphasises imagination, persistence, and the long-term journey of transforming the relationship between humans, technology, and the environment.