Homo Photosyntheticus

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link http://thiscouldbeyourlink.org/

Homo Photosyntheticus

A DIYBIO APPROACH TO COSMIC AND MICROCOSMIC PERCEPTION OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD OF PROTISTS A devotion to Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock Gaia Hypothesis

Lynn Margulis’ and James Lovelock‘s Gaia Hypothesis are our starting point to dig into a more complex comprehension of the world we are inhabiting. Planet Earth with its exuberant nature and connection of forests, rivers, water basins and ocean, we are especially interested in the research on the potential of the so called protists world, the cyanobacteria, micro- and macroalgae in particular. The idea is to display a ciritical thinking between cosmic and microcosmic connections through the lense of photosynthetic beings like cyanobacteria as smallest unit to micro- and macro algaes and finally touch the speculation of Homo Photosyntheticus. We will dive into the scope and scape of micro and macro by getting familiar with a more-than-human encounter, to sharpen our perception and our capability to grasp it. The tools we apply is DIYbio approaches and will be explored as workshops within the group on site by artist Maya Minder.
On the macro level space ecology scientists help us to explain the world and its cosmic relations. We intend and anticipate inviting scientists from IPNE to give us presentations on satellite environment monitoring (macro).


The starting point of this project is our current research and film project on the „Homo Photosyntheticus“ topic (which we describe more in detail inside the project proposal): How can we get more familiar with the cosmic interconnectivity of our bio- and hydrosphere, water and environmental variables that affect the habitability of Earth? We will discuss the connectivity of agriculture and the effects of deforestation on the hydrosphere of global growth of algae blooms. What are the fears and dangers of this microbial world and how can we relocate the fear into a positive notion. All the practices will be collectively documented (transparency) to make them accessible (open source). We will follow the methodes wiki of hackteria.org 1

Proposition:

Field trip:

How to sample: Collecting protists in the forests and aquatic basins, get familiar with the microbial world surrounding us. What are protists? How can we perceive them by our human perception? Where are the interesting spots to collect microbes, learn inside a collective DIWO (Do-It-With-Others), learn how to sample and collect, make descriptions and protocol, keep things transparent and open source. We will document the material on the wiki of Hackteria.org ½ day workshop


Microscoping and creating a microbial Atlas:

The collected material will be protocoliced and examined under the microscope. Becoming familiar with the invisible world of the protists, how to sample, how to create a catalogue, how to work with a microscope. ½ day workshop

Make Visible the Invisible - DIYbio Workshop:

Create petri dishes: steps to learn how to make nutrient medium and create our own microbial cosmic world. We will take samples from our bodies, the samples we collected, food and plants to see that all is alive and all has a holobiont. Practically: learn how to work sterile, learn how to work with invisible microbes, learn how to autoclave, first steps into DIY-biology. We can create easy protocols on the interaction of microbes with the use of antibiotics, pesticides, hormones, etc. to compare samples.

1 day workshop


Cooking class:

Eat your sidewalk or forest food. foraging and cooking. Can we learn from indigenous practice of the edible not industrial food to get connected more with the locality and the common of the in situ space. Connected to my project with Green Open Food Evolution I will talk as well on the edible seaweeds and the things you can cook with them, the nutritional values and benefits of vegan food. Share your experience and culture, learn from others, discuss the ingredients, a dish is like a dinner table; the conversations are only as good as its participants. cooking for staying together 1 day workshop:


Scientific discussion:

Invitation of a Scientist from INPE (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais - located in São José dos Campos) to tell us more about the practice and tools of environmental monitoring of deforestation and its connections to algaeblooms. Through the contacts we receive from Ewen Chardronnet we would like to invite a scientist or person from the INPE, this can be arranged pre-headed by the SACi-E platform (Space Culture Platform & Artistic Residency program at INPE), we are considering taking E. Chardronnet (SACi-E pilot committee) or Fabiane M. Borges (SACi-E program coordinator) into account but would need help to establish a schedule. We are mostly interested in the tools of satellite environmental monitoring of deforestation, agriculture and algae blooms. 1 day presentation and discussion and dinner


Visual display of research & its narrative asthetics:

All the workshops and discussions will be filmed and edited to a film. We will develop the final storytelling as well as the filmic language during the residency. The narrative language will be two folded to engage with the 2 different realms of the project: the micro and macro view. Mainly we focus on two filmic styles: On one hand the factual world of history and contemporary issues of algaes which will be captured through documentary technics and approaches as well as guided interviews. This part could be referred to as the «overwater aesthetic». It is a scientific look through the microscope as well as filmic investigations of the environment. It’s goal is to present scientific information in a comprehensive way.

The second dimension portrays the speculative world like the potentials of Homo Photosyntheticus. This «underwater world» connects with the unknown, the subconscious, the fantastic elements of the film. Thus diving into the underwater could be as well a dive into the subconscious realm, bridging real facts with the speculative aspects of the potential of becoming Homo Photosyntheticus. The audio will be closely developed with the visual style. Endformat will be installations and films as well as the continuance of the interview series.




Homo Photosyntheticus - Filmsynopsis

In 1972, the atmospheric scientist James Lovelock undertook a scientific voyage on the ship Shackleton to measure the atmospheric content of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) at different points on the globe. He concluded that marine organisms have a major regulatory role in the diffusion of DMS, revealing a climate feedback loop correlating DMS production by marine phytoplankton and cloud albedo. This observation drove him to publish the first article on the Gaian mechanism in the same year: “Gaia as seen through the atmosphere”. Moreover it is estimated that 50-80% of the oxygen production on Earth comes from the ocean: from oceanic plankton, algae, and some bacteria that can photosynthesize. One particular species, the smallest photosynthetic organism on Earth, the cyanobacteria Prochlorococcus, produces by itself up to 20% of the oxygen in our entire biosphere. That’s a higher percentage than all of the tropical rainforests on land combined. This shows how important phytoplankton and algae are to the balance of the biosphere. However, with the increasing number of green tides, sargassum oceans and algae blooms, algae have acquired a bad reputation. Even if the causes of these algae blooms are climate change, ocean acidification and global warming, chemical and nutrient discharges from deforestation, petro&chemio industries, nitrate discharges from animal farming and other anthropogenic causes. The urgency of the environmental crisis requires a shift towards a low-carbon society, towards sustainable energies,food alternatives and the way live Yet algae promise immense potential to overcome the environmental catastrophes of the Anthropocene. Algae can be used as biofuels, biomaterials, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Their nutritional role is recognised, algae are rich in proteins, minerals, fatty acids and vitamins. Micro-algae such as spirulina or chlorella are promising food alternatives and the food cultures of North-East Asia did not wait for the environmental crises of the twentieth century to integrate macro-algae such as Kombu, Wakame, Nori, into their diets. The Umami flavour of Kombu seaweed was discovered as early as the beginning of the 20th century. Mastering the life cycle of Nori seaweed saved its food industry in the wake of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima nuclear disaster. A recent scientific study even described how the microbiota of the Japanese had undergone an evolutionary lateral gene transfer to better digest Nori seaweed. So how can algae be further integrated into the world diet? How can we bring more algae to our tables?

In marine life, many species (Elysia Chlorotica, Zebra fish, Sea sheep, etc.) have even managed to integrate micro-algae into their tissues during their evolution in order to benefit from their photosynthesis. Evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis likes to mention the Roscoff marine worm in Brittany, a fully photosymbiotic species that ingests but does not digest its symbiotic micro-algae, keeping it in its tissues to live entirely on its photosynthesis. Lynn Margulis speculates on this animal-algae and pushes the reflection towards a future „Homo Photosyntheticus“ of the human species, a future of our evolution where the human would become integrally phototrophic, human-plant without any need to feed, thus approaching the early speculations of Vladimir Vernadsky, the scientist who defined the notion of the Biosphere in the 1920s. More recently these marine photosymbiosis have inspired medical and biomedical research. Many research teams are trying to take advantage from this photosymbiotic logic to integrate micro-algae on or inside damaged human tissues in order to benefit from their photosynthesis to regenerate them. The speculations of Lynn Margulis and Vladimir Vernadsky also inspire speculative bio-artists and science fiction writers. From Adam Zaretsky to Spela Petric, from Ursula Le Guin to Kim Stanley Robinson, it is a future „Homo Photosyntheticus“ that seems to be opening up to humankind.

The Prochlorococcus Marinus Source: Luke Thompson from Chisholm Lab and Nikki Watson from Whitehead, MIT Roscoff worm Spirulina under microscope Algae preparation by Maya Minder

So how do we get inspired from this speculative direction towards a‚ Homo Phtosyntheticus‘? Lynn Margulis envisions it to enable humans to become multi-planetary, living in orbit around other planets. European Space Agency‘s MELISSA (Multi-Ecological Life Support System Alternative) programme is thinking about circular systems for life in orbit, imagining urea and CO2 recycling together with the cultivation of spirulina as an alternative food and oxygen source. The Multicellular Marine Models laboratory at the Roscoff Biological Station is planning to study the Roscoff worm in space to better understand its photosymbiotic life cycle and its tissue regeneration capacities. Why? Maybe because we know yet far too little about the oceans, the holobionts and the life of algae, these protists that are ‚queering‘ conventional taxonomy. Is the objective of going from the ocean floor to outer space only to come back to Earth, the Ocean planet? To finally leave the Anthropocene and enter this Chthulucene that the philosopher and zoologist Donna Haraway is calling for?

Sicentific & Environmental Politics Context

Space Monitoring of Deforestation under Threat

One of the main environmental problems in Brazil is deforestation, especially in the Amazon region. The government and other agencies have made great efforts to monitor this anthropogenic phenomenon. Important alert tools for monitoring and controlling are the space monitoring programs of the INPE (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais) called Measurement of Deforestation by Remote Sensing (PRODES) and Brazilian Real-Time Deforestation Detection (DETER)1. These programs are more important than even since deforestation in Brazil’s portion of the world’s largest rainforest hit a 12-year high in 2020. In 2020 alone, the Cerrado lost 7,340 km2 of native vegetation, an increase of 13.6% compared to 2019, when 6,483 km2 were deforested, according to PRODES data. Soy was the main driver, converting 2,078 km2 of savannah into crops in 2020, equivalent to 28.3% of the total deforested area2.

Unfortunately Brazil’s government under President Jair Bolsonaro has proposed in 2021 the smallest budget for environmental protection in at least 13 years with a 24%3 cut despite soaring destruction of the country’s Amazon rainforest. Since assuming office in 2019, Bolsonaro has drained environmental agencies of funding, and today, PRODES AND DETER, the two deforestation monitoring and remote sensing systems, run by the INPE, are even threatened. The DETER programme only has funding until the end of August. Meanwhile, PRODES, the annual inventory of native vegetation loss, has funds until December.

Sargassum Ocean and the Amazon Deforestation

Since the start of the last decade, sargassum, which clumps together to form large buoyant mats of plant life, has hugely proliferated. By mid- 2018, they had formed a 5,600-mile living bridge between the Caribbean Sea and the African coast, swamping coastlines and beaches with noxious macro-algae invasions.

The latest investigations4 have identified the principal culprit in the growth of sargassum as the discharge of nutrients and pollutants from mighty rivers such as the Amazon in Brazil and the Orinoco in Venezuela, as prevailing ocean currents, altered by climate change, sweep the effluent north to the Caribbean. With the deforestation of the Amazon, water washes soil and chemical elements into the rivers. Nitrogen is a nutrient of sargassum, and its main sources are agriculture, industries and sewage disposal. Therefore, the explosive macro-algae growth could also be considered a warning sign about increased deforestation in the Amazon basin. Deforestation is causing more erosion and sediments to run off into the rivers and eventually out to sea.

1 Amazônia 1 is the most recent satellite of the DETER system and the first developed by Brazil. Launched February 28, 2021, „Amazon 1 will provide images for environmental and agricultural monitoring throughout Brazil (...). It will also be used to monitor the coastal region, water reserves, environmental disasters, among other applications,“ explains INPE.

2 https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/brazil-cuts-environment-spending-one-dayafter- us-climate-summit-pledge-2021-04-23/

3 https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/brazil-cuts-environment-spending-one-dayafter- us-climate-summit-pledge-2021-04-23/


Algae blooms in Sao Paulo Region's Reservoirs

Climate change is transforming aquatic ecosystems. Coastal waters have experienced progressive warming, acidification, and deoxygenation that will intensify this century and will have many effects on freshwater and marine environments. These effects, along with nutrient pollution, might cause harmful algal blooms to occur more often, in more waterbodies and to be more intense. Algal blooms endanger human health and the environment. Moreover, human activities on a global scale have significantly contributed to the degradation of the water quality of inland aquatic systems by increasing their nutrient levels. Particularly, reservoirs are under high pressure due to the increasing water demand for urban areas, including irrigation, industrial use, and energy production, while still needing to maintain their ecological function. The quasi-lentic nature of reservoirs leads to a higher phosphorus accumulation, which may trigger phytoplankton production, abundance, and frequency of algae blooms. Algae bloom is a rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae, characterized by the blue-green water coloration caused by algae’s pigments, that can cause serious consequences to human health and aquatic biogeochemistry due to the production of toxins. Due to increasing algae bloom occurrence and water degradation on a global scale, there is a demand for water quality monitoring systems based on remote sensing imagery. Scientists at INPE5 have developed an Earth Engine App, entitled Algae Bloom Monitoring Application (AlgaeMAp)6 and applied it to better understand algae blooms in reservoirs and water sources of Sao Paulo area.

A recent satellite-based investigation has been conducted into the algae bloom variability in large water supply urban reservoirs during COVID-19 lockdown. Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) and phycocyanin (PC - a pigment-protein found in spirulina among other micro-algae) concentrations were estimated for the Guarapiranga and Billings reservoirs, which supply daily water use for over 20 million people and receives treated wastewater. The study found a significant increase in algae pigments (Chl-a and PC) in both reservoirs in April 2020, compared to the same month of 2019. It shows that the episodic algae blooming is strongly related to the increased inflows of the residential wastewater from the surrounding watersheds. In the case of Guarapiranga Reservoir, PC increased nearly 500% in April 2020 compared to April 2019.

4 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02080-y https://www.nola.com/news/environment/article_8f73ac64-8916-11eb-8ca1-2b9612ea17ff.html https://infoamazonia.org/en/storymap/the-pollution-of-illegal-gold-mining-in-the-tapajos-river/ https://www.inverse.com/article/59633-amazon-rainforest-great-atlantic-sargassum-belt 5 https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/13/15/2874/htm 6 https://felipellobo.users.earthengine.app/view/algaemapv10