Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates the forthcoming of the new digital technology of EMHs into the world of beekeeping. Part of the research is an art piece that hacks standard EMHs in order to invert their embedded politics enabling beekeepers to develop sonic fabulation with bees.

Paper long abstract:

This ongoing polymorphous ethnography investigates the forthcoming of EMHs into the world of beekeeping. An EMH is not a new type of hive but the process of filling a beehive with various types of digital sensors in order to monitor bee colonies and develop a less time-consuming practice, ultimately benefiting honeybees as it's less disturbing. As this technology is at its dawn, the ethnography often turned into a speculative investigation made in collaboration with the interviewees. While unveiling a certain type of enhancement of this relationship, the research shows that EMHs have clearly defined embedded politics: the aim of which is to render the practice of beekeeping more rational and ultimately lower the human component. What results is an alienating process, potentially depriving beekeepers of the ontological dance they have conducted with bees for thousands years. It extends a new form of biopower over non-humans, disentangling two worlds previously intertwined. A part of this research is an art piece that takes a political statement by inverting the politics of this technology; it hacks EMH's data with the intention of transforming its quantitative status (colony management) into qualitative aesthetic sonic data. It results in a new prototype of EMH that enables beekeepers to develop sonic speculation with bees in order to strengthen and develop a new type of interspecies relationship that subverts traditional narratives. The sonic data is mixed with visual data harvested from various universities, resulting in experimental films combining music and interviews which delves into the Umwelt of bees.