Corpus Rhizoma: A Responsive Digital Interpretation of Human-Microbiome Interconnections

Corpus Rhizoma presents an interactive physical-virtual installation that explores the relationships between microorganisms, humans, digital technologies, and their environments. This work investigates the interconnections between humans and invisible microbiota, which become comprehensible only through scientific explanation due to the differences in scale.The installation materialises these connections through mycelium-formed sculptures (branches, stones, and a human foot) arranged on soil, challenging anthropocentric perceptions. Fungi's role in ecological balance through remediation and nutrient cycling represents the symbiotic relationships among all entities. A responsive digital interpretation, through sensing technologies that detect proximity and temperature, expresses these interconnections as particles on a monitor, their behaviours shifting in response to human proximity, sometimes retreating from, other times drawing toward human presence.By bridging biological, environmental, and digital worlds, the virtual space functions not as a representation but as a site for all matters to encounter without hierarchy. When living organisms (including humans) and environmental forces enter this virtual realm as particles, they engage in what Stelarc describes as a "complex choreography" that materialises Haraway's "dance of encounters."The project evolved from focusing on fungi-human-microorganism relationships to capturing multiple agential encounters with environmental contexts, shifting from human-centred to environment-inclusive perspectives. Corpus Rhizoma explores how to materialise "becoming-with" across species boundaries, revealing virtual environments as zones where imperceptible relationships become tangible.This work reconfigures our engagement with the invisible microbiome by positioning digital systems not as mediators but as active participants reshaping human/non-human dialogue. In doing so, it creates a space where perceptual limitations are challenged.