Symbiotic Synchronicity

The multimedia installation Symbiotic Synchronicity by Austrian artist Dagmar Schürrer is inspired by the scientific and philosophical work of Lynn Margulis, who articulated symbiosis as a central organizing principle of life. In contrast to dominant Darwinian narratives that place competition at the core of evolution, Margulis argued that intimate forms of living together among different organisms—whether mutually beneficial or parasitic—constitute a key driving force behind biological complexity and innovation.

Symbiosis is not an exception but the norm in the microbial world: the boundaries between individual organisms are blurred and continuously redrawn within a network of interdependencies. This perspective radically reconsiders the concept of individuality, revealing the cell, the organism, and even the species as outcomes of long processes of cohabitation, integration, and co-evolution.

At the heart of the mixed-reality interactive experience lies the understanding that the development of technologies and their widespread accessibility are transforming the parameters of interaction between science and art. These technologies offer not only new, unexplored worlds but also alternative modes of engaging with audiences. In mixed reality (MR), the digital and the analog merge almost seamlessly. A new generation of VR headsets enables the use of digital spatial applications while keeping the physical environment and the presence of other participants visible.

In this way, viewers are able to interact and form their own hybrid clusters. While wearing Meta Quest 3 headsets and moving freely through the space, they can grasp and reposition digital objects with their hands—connecting and separating them, constructing and reconstructing new configurations. This interactivity functions as an artistic reflection on contemporary microbiome research, which demonstrates that organisms operate as complex ecosystems inhabited by billions of microorganisms.

Within this context, the artist explores hybridity, the porous boundaries between body and environment, and the invisible agents involved in shaping life. Symbiosis thus emerges not only as a biological phenomenon but also as a conceptual framework for understanding interconnectedness, dependency, and co-existence. Models based not on domination but on mutual vulnerability and shared evolution reveal symbiosis as a political and aesthetic figure that undermines the notion of the autonomous subject and proposes alternative modes of living together.

Dagmar Schürrer is an Austrian digital artist based in Berlin working in the field of expanded animation and extended reality (XR) technologies. Her artistic practice is often inspired by scientific concepts from biology and neuroscience. In her hybrid experiences, she links these with new technologies such as XR and artificial intelligence, digital world-building, and poetic interpretations of human consciousness and its environmental entanglements. With intricate animations and spatial multimedia installations, she creates contemplative spaces for reflection on the evolving relationship between technology and perception. Her works have been presented internationally at festivals and exhibitions including New Contemporaries, ICA London; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Auditorium du Louvre, Paris; Eunam Museum, South Korea; Ars Electronica, Linz; Museum of Waste, Changsha; ISEA, Seoul; Belvedere21, Vienna; Tate Modern, London.

She is an artistic research assistant and workshop leader for XR development at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin.

The exhibition is organized by Art Project Depot in collaboration with the National Museum of Natural History at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia and Rebonkers, Varna

The project has been presented at a number of European festivals for digital and media arts, including the Athens Digital Arts Festival (2025), Stuttgarter Filmwinter in Stuttgart (2025), Urban Wellbeing Festival (2025) in Berlin at the Soma Art exhibition space, and ISEA - International Symposium on Electronic Art in Seoul (2025)

Project BG-RRP-11-024-0058-C01 “Symbiotic Synchronicity – Dagmar Schürrer in Sofia and Varna” is funded through Component 11 “Social Inclusion”, Investment 6 “Development of the Cultural and Creative Sectors”, Procedure from the Information System (IS) for the Recovery and Resilience Facility BG-RRP-11.024-C01 “Grant Scheme for Presenting Contemporary European Productions from the Cultural and Creative Industries Sector to Bulgarian Audiences”, under the ”Recovery and Resilience Plan”.