Symbiotic Forms in Miekal And’s Poetry

The article analyzes the symbiotic interaction between humans and microorganisms in visual poetry and such a direction of bio-art as bacterial art (BacArt). Using the example of Miekal And’ s poetry collection “I, Spirochetes” (1974), which was created during the poet’s experience of a severe disease, borelliosis, the author argues that this artistic experience anticipated the main principles of posthumanism long before the emergence of corresponding theoretical concepts. The problem of co-authorship of human and non-human agents is considered in the context of bio-art works and high-tech biopoetic projects by E. Katz, J. Davis, and K. Bock. Based on the concepts of new materialism, the article analyzes how spirochetes transform the artist’s consciousness and corporeality, manifesting themselves as active co-authors of the poetic act. The study addresses the issues of collective intelligence and the formation of a “transversal subject” that transcends anthropocentric boundaries in the process of “assembly” with living matter. The author concludes that the experience of interspecies communication in the work of Miekal And allows us to consider his work as a result of the interaction of distributed agent forces in a post-anthropocentric world.