MUTUALISM

Mutualism
Tilman Robinson & Carla Zimbler
Premiere TBD

Mutualism is a multi-channel, site-responsive audio-visual performance experience exploring the ecological processes of symbiosis, regeneration and equilibrium.

The work focuses on pairings of organisms that display symbiotic relationships, documenting reciprocally mutualistic relationships, as well as those in which a symbiotic partner may be detrimental or unaware to the other.

Mutualism encourages us to imagine a meta-ecosystem; a utopic, euphoric and uncanny one that mirrors our own. The video work conceptualises pairings of imaginary organisms that display symbiotic relationships both beneficial and harmful. The audio is textural and darkly ambient, ranging from drone heavy meditations, to pointillistic flurries of electronically altered acoustic sound, to rich sections of immersive field recordings.

The work derives musical and visual material from a wide range of sources including genomic sequences/protein data, environmental scans, archival imagery and field recordings. Images of landscape and organisms are processed by a responsive video system which utilises live manipulation techniques and VFX to blend surreal elements. Slowly evolving musical landscapes trigger captivating tableaux that emerge in unexpected ways. Visual elements react to sonic cues and vice versa resulting in an outcome as symbiotic as the ecological relationships that inform it.

Mutualism makes visible an imaginary cellular world, creating maximalism from the most minimal building blocks. Rather than presenting a nihilistic take on the desecration of the planet’s eco-systems, Mutualism aims to celebrate the resilience of a natural world that will long outlive us.

ARTISTIC TEAM

Tilman Robinson – composer, audio systems design, performer
Carla Zimbler – visuals, video system design, performer
Bob Jarvis – systems design consultant