During the development of our forthcoming book, Cryptobiosphere, Kenji Siratori and I established Xenosis, a daily practice of xenopoetic divination conducted across distance.
Each reading begins with a strict division of roles. The Oracle (me) draws the cards and gathers geomagnetic and solar data, but doesn’t interpret them. The Reader (Siratori) receives the data and writes its xenopoetic decipherment, but has no influence over which cards appear. The card passes between us as a suspended signal, belonging to neither role. Solar wind and geomagnetic conditions are parallel states against which the cards and Siratori’s language may be encountered.
Through repetition, Xenosis has added another practical layer to my concept of psychogametous reproduction. The work cannot be produced by either participant alone, yet our functions are not blended. Reception and decipherment take place separately. What materialises between them is shaped by distance, timing, symbolic recurrence and the environmental conditions surrounding the reading.
Working in this way has made several ideas within Cryptobiosphere more precise. Information may be present long before it becomes readable. Contact and decipherment do not necessarily occur at the same moment. Reception can itself be a specialised activity. An environment does not only surround an interpretation, but may participate in its formation. The self, in turn, can be understood as a temporary host through which signals pass.
The accumulating Xenosis archive is therefore not a record of conclusions. It’s a still-living body of readings, collected as podcasts here and as longer essays on Academia. Its relevance to the present direction of my work lies in the relational literacy it exercises. A sign acquires legibility through its contact with another sign, another perception, another environment or another moment in time
.