What Do We Hear When We Hear Microbe Sounds

The concept of the Anthropocene, based on the premise that mankind has become a major geological force in its own right, has grown into a central theme with issues such as ecological crisis, climate change, or sustainable futures. On the other hand, posthumanist and new materialist approaches have developed philosophical insights that call into question the dominant position of humans in the universe and the anthropomorphic premises associated with it, particularly focusing on the unfolding of symbiotic modes that traverse the entire nature-culture continuum. This article, rather than directly engaging with Anthropocene debates, aims to explore how different modes of human-microbe interaction crystallize in different sound  compositions through the conceptualization of “microbesounds.” The notion of rhythm is central here, encompassing both the vital processes and the emergence of technical forms. Three different case studies—the work of Interspecifics, Anne Niemetz and Andrew Pelling’s the dark side of the cell, and Victoria Shennan’s Anthropocene—will be examined, and the ways in which they mobilize different technical means to plunge into a microbial level and activate its various electrical, chemical, physical, and/or vital properties in a particular sound composition. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s analysis of rhythm in A Thousand Plateaus (1987), and Gilbert Simondon’s concept of transduction in his theory of individuation (2005), will be mobilized in order to examine how disparate elements of different rhythms operate in solidarity to produce a microbe-sound composition.