Pre(N)atura |
Fonoceno

Pre(N)atura | Phonocene is a speculative audiovisual work emerging from post-natural studies and deep listening as core creative axes. Inspired by the ideas of Donna Haraway and Vinciane Despret, the piece invites us to inhabit the Phonocene: an era in which active, political, and affective listening reconfigures the relationships between bodies, technologies, and territories.

This is not merely about hearing, but about perceiving coexistence as a radical act of attention and care. In this narrative, creatures of the Chthulucene — hybrid entities, hyper-evolved mycelia, mutating residues — appear to challenge normative languages and activate a planetary awareness of interdependence.

The scales within the Phonocene expand, expanding its message as hyperobjects have transformed from large solid wastes to immense species, from the minuscule organisms of our microbiota to the farthest reaches of the Earth.

These entities are not metaphors; they are speculative models of existence, born from hybridization processes between real biological forms and contemporary waste. Among the species that inspired their visual design are:

• Aspergillus tubingensis, a fungus capable of digesting plastic, symbol of circular adaptation in toxic environments.
• Deepstaria enigmatica, an ethereal, membranous jellyfish — evocation of viscous and sonic form.
• Pestalotiopsis microspora, mutating fungi and microbes, and fragments of technological debris, drifting through landscapes where nature and artifice are no longer distinguishable.

Visually, these creatures were generated using AI tools such as Stable Diffusion and Runway (Gen-2 / Gen-3), through prompts weaving together science fiction, post-industrial archaeology, liquid zoology, and archaic symbolism.

In Pre(N)atura | Phonocene, language is not a human technology but a shared vibration — a resonance between what is alive and what once was. The creatures that emerge in this narrative — hyper-evolved mycelia, hybrids between the organic and the synthetic — do not speak with words, but through a metalanguage built from ancient tongues that resisted erasure through their inscription in matter: stones, caves, codices, temples.

In a world where digital systems are fragile — reliant on energy, connectivity, and ephemeral supports — these ancestral languages offer a message about the durability of what is carved, in contrast to the volatility of the digital. A silent critique of the obsolescence of our archival technologies and the fragility of contemporary memory.

To construct this phonocenic metalanguage, we worked with artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and vocal synthesis, combining phonemes, cadences, and rhythms from languages such as:

• Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic
• Ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, Classical Chinese, Tamil
• Náhuatl and Quechua

These languages were not chosen only for their history, but for their vibrant, hypnotic, ritual sound. Their phonetic power turns them into more than codes: instruments. From their fusion arises an impossible yet plausible tongue — a form of speech that belongs to no single people yet resonates in every body.

What these creatures say is not meant to be understood literally: their message is sensory, affective, and rhythmic. Each syllable, each inflection, activates a zone of memory that transcends the linguistic. It is an unrational listening, an invitation to attune to the world beyond the human.