Back to Amsterdam, surrounded by the noise of the city and of the news, especially the environment-related ones. Floods and woodfires in Brazil are the superficial layer of the factors causing me symptoms of a sort of climatic anxiety. The recent notifications of autochthone West Nile fever cases in Europe, and Oropouche fever in Latin America – both dipteran-related diseases – seem to announce a future of deeper intimacy between viruses, insects and humans.

Part of my curiosity about the multi-viral context has been on understanding the epidemic and emerging disease scenarios by taking the viruses as a starting – instead of an ending – point. Specifically, what do beings who straddle the concept of species have to say about a multispecies approach? The silent way through which viruses are activated in a cell and spread in the environment involves diverse mechanisms. Such mechanisms produce distinct effects in the cellular and institutional memories. Chemical interactions with the host cells, produced from mimicking its receptors, the similar symptoms – but requiring different treatments – that the mosquito-related viruses provoke. These are some of the epidemiological, administrative and conceptual mess caused by the viruses. With that in mind, I’ve been understanding them as tricksters and mapping who they are deceiving.