ArteActa issue no. 15 "BEYOND HUMAN COMMUNALITY: ENCOUNTERS AND LIMITS" is released
Issue 15/2026 of ArteActa, "Beyond Human Communality: Encounters and Limits," reflects on the systems and boundaries of imagining a world beyond human existence, along with the methodologies and strategies that might support such exploration. Seven artistic investigations examine the coexistence of more-than-human entities—real, fictional, or mythological—with humans.
The introductory essay by Sára Märc, "We Have Never Truly Left Earth: On Multi-Planetary Communality," argues that extraterrestrial expansion is not a departure from earthly conditions but an intensification of existing political, material, and imperial relations.
https://doi.org/10.22501/artact.4503966
Ralo Mayer's artistic research also engages with non-terrestrial themes. His exposition "Space Acts: A Workshop of Performative Research and Storying on Meteorites and Space Mining" draws on a series of works involving meteorites to open discussions of the Earth-space complex—its territorial, economic, political, and narrative dimensions, particularly human interaction with resources on and off Earth.
https://doi.org/10.22501/artact.4010243
Several other articles employ multidisciplinary collaborations, blending artistic strategies with scientific methods. Through the construction of specific devices and digital interfaces, they let technology mediate cross-species understanding and open imaginative space for envisioning life beyond human frames. "Corpus Rhizoma: A Responsive Digital Interpretation of Human-Microbiome Interconnections" by Indae Hwang, Danica Karaicic, and Gyungju Chyon explores how to materialize "becoming-with" across species through an interactive physical-virtual installation of mycelium-formed sculptures arranged on soil. Here, digital systems act as participants reshaping human/more-than-human dialogue.
https://doi.org/10.22501/artact.3861609
Andrew Burrell's "Conversations with the Mangrove—A Speculative Design Proposition towards a Sympoiesis with Extended Digital and Physical Ecologies" proposes a speculative design methodology called Xenomancy, broadening how digital ecologies might be engaged through non-conscious cognition. The process builds relationships with animals, trees, and rivers through methods such as walking the landscape, recording, and engaging with digital tools.
https://doi.org/10.22501/artact.3832936
Leonardo Barbierato also bridges human and beyond-human worlds on a dialogical level. In "Negotiating the Stage with Plants: Improvised Music and Other-Than-Human Hauntings," he examines improvisational practice involving both human performers and plant species.
https://doi.org/10.22501/artact.3755641
In "Fireflies: Whose Vision Counts?" Constanza Julia Bani uses high-tech devices and visualizing software to translate animal vision—specifically that of fireflies—into human-perceivable form and draws out the contrast between human and firefly sight. Working within the frame of visual ecology, she offers speculative insight into how animal behavior may shift under conditions of light pollution.
https://doi.org/10.22501/artact.3739761
Kristina Frank's film and performance project, "MELT: An Exploration of Ice and Snow," centers on the experience of climate crisis—specifically glacial melt—from the perspective of polar animals, performing longing and grief for a winter landscape that can no longer be taken for granted.
https://doi.org/10.22501/artact.3907656
Carl-Mikael Björk's "Tender Proximities: Diffractive Photographic Performance with the Wolf" critically examines mythological narratives associated with the Wolf. Taking shape as a diffractive investigation through photographic mise-en-scène—scenographic constructions of model miniatures and embodied drag performance—it unfolds the Wolf through queered configurations of gender, masculinity, and intimate proximity.
https://doi.org/10.22501/artact.3606805
