This is the second live episode of the Driving the Human Festival! Until March, we will be releasing an episode every Thursday featuring different participants from the festival.
Everything would be so much simpler if what we call nature spoke the same language as we do. Clearing forests would become a moral test of courage if trees grumbled, "I can't believe it!" as soon as they were approached. Anne-Sofie Belling, Bea Delgado Corrales, Romy Kaiser, and Paula Nerlich are working on making this utopia a reality soon. This interdisciplinary collaboration of biologists and designers is developing human-bacteria interfaces. The project is still speculative, but it has great potential: Of course, it's not about teaching a mycelium English. Rather, the researchers are exploring which properties various bacteria already possess that can be used to facilitate interaction between humans and bacteria. Romy and Paula explain exactly what this could look like in the podcast.
Credits
Moderation: Anton Rahlwes and Nina Sieverding
Editing: Niklas Münch