Symbiotic Consciousness: Experiments in Knowing and Acting at a Distance

Abstract: This article examines cognition, identity, and agency as distributed across biological, microbial, and algorithmic systems. It challenges the notion of the individual by framing humans as holobionts—complex assemblages of human cells, symbiotic microorganisms, and increasingly, machine intelligence. Through interactive installations such as Scatter Surge, Enteric Consciousness, Paparazzi Bots, and Augmented Fish Reality, the work explores interspecies communication, embodied perception, and the co-evolution of humans and intelligent machines. These projects foreground touch, sensory illusion, and microbial processes as central to experience, while interrogating how telepresence and algorithmic systems reshape perception and cultural identity. The article ultimately questions where cognition resides within this expanded ecology and calls for a rethinking of symbiosis in an era where biological and artificial systems increasingly converge.