Microbiospherians

Abstract

Researchers and practitioners in the trading zone of art and science have been experimenting with human-made ecosystems involving a variety of biological, chemical, technical and aesthetic aspects. While microorganisms are always a part of such systems, most often they don't attract human attention. And if they are integrated into art and design projects, they are commonly put behind glass for safety or stability of the small ecosystems. However, in Biosphere 2, a large artificial glasshouse ecosystem built in the desert of Arizona, humans and microbes performed together with technical actors within the same environment. In this paper, we focus on Biosphere 2's ‘Mission One’ (1991–93), an ecological experiment in which eight humans, also called biospherians, together with other plant and animal species, were completely isolated in a large glasshouse from the biosphere of the Earth. Notwithstanding the lack of detailed information on specific microorganisms and their activity, we aim to analyse the environmental phenomena and human experiences in which microorganisms played an important role. Biosphere 2 provides the ideal context for such endeavour since its accelerated metabolic cycles made phenomena appear quickly and showed, just as fast, which interventions generated which effects. As a method of analysis we make use of the notion of ‘leverage points’ as places for inducing change in systems (Meadows 1999). We outline a range of physical, structural, informational and rule-based changes in systems ordered by efficacy. We discuss different attempts of leveraging Biosphere 2's ecosystem and identify leveraging options on different system levels, revealing the undeniable power of microbes, or microbiospherians, to steer ecosystem processes. Based on interviews we conducted with biospherian Mark Nelson, we discuss the challenges of leveraging from within Biosphere 2's ecosystem and how it led to a strong perception of metabolic connectedness among the human participants. Finally, we propose leveraging from within as an artistic strategy for intervening within ecosystems, and reflect on how microbiospherians challenge the order of leverage points.