FUNGUS AMONG US: Mycoremedial-Based Performance, Word, and Dance Experiments
Mycelium is the rich complex root system that underlies mushroom fruit. Incredibly sensitive, it is an interconnected, mobile, shapeshifting, underground, sentient, & communicative realm. Mycelia breathe in oxygen and breathe out CO2-- more like us than any other creature. What can we learn from them, in art-making? In this laboratory, we will try out some physical experiments prompted by the phenomena of this brilliant beast and some artists who take inspiration in the fungus among us.
The workshop co-taught by Abby Crain, Margit Galanter, and inspired by the research of mycologists and the work of local artisans and writers emji spiro and Sophia Wang
Writing from Sophia:
"Fungal mycelial networks are everywhere: literally under our feet, threading through the soil of the earth, up through the trunks of trees, active at every stage of any ecosystem's life cycle, on all of our continents. Mycelium serves as the root system for mushrooms: an underground freeway for nutrients and minerals that fungi make available and mobile through their transformation of all organic matter. If it grew under the sun, a fungus can eat it. Following any major natural disaster, mycelial networks are the earth's first line of defense: breaking down carbon-based waste, as in oil spills, and sequestering and rendering toxic elements inert, as in radioactive contaminations. Mycelial architectures have always supported and nourished our natural environments, and we are now discovering ways that mycelium can support our built environments too. The mycocultural revolution is here, and the future is fungal."
Excerpt from almost any shit will do for Fresh festival
emji spero
"Hello, my name is Emji Spero. I recently finished a book of poetry called almost any shit will do. The process of writing this piece involved using found text from research on mycelial studies to talk about my experiences participating in direct action and radical social movements. For this poem I replaced the word "mushroom" with the phrase "the individual" and the word "mycelium" with the phrase "the movement" as a way of moving across contexts. Okay, then.
an individual
is actually only part of the organism—
the main part of an individual is underground or
running through dead wood,
consists of a mat of hairlike fibers called
the movement
the movement
is present even
when there are no
individuals
some individuals have movements
that stretch for miles and miles
*
generally, the movement, or what in scientific
language is called the movement, is supposed to be
analogous to seed, or something analogous to roots,
spine, the hair of ordinary individuals, the visible
part or spine, head and hair, of the individual being,
in fact, blooming
chance or
a concurrence of
circumstances
a knowledge of the anatomy and life-
history of the individual is not necessary and
is not familiar.
we can see them clearly enough
can see in what matter they are born and fixed
but of the history of their lives, from the time
they fall from the surfaces on which
they were born
the young individuals vigorously
pushing up from the mass of
the delicate blooming which they
have given rise to in culture
or decaying shit, we know
nothing.
any body could carry it out.
*
if it is possible and we know
it is not only possible for individuals
to bloom in apartments a few yards long
and ten or eighteen feet wide it is clear
there can be no difficulty about
their blooming in abundance
given the materials and some position
in which to carry out culture, and both these
things are surely to be had almost in any place
there is a stable rest
any body could carry it out.
any empty loft or other covered
structure
frequently present an opportunity
for blooming
*
one of the best movements i have ever seen
was blooming in a dry and unused house
culture in sheds, cafes, tents,
port-o-potties, and all enclosed structures
other than the individual
in nearly every country,
in numerous urban
landscapes,
in fact,
in most places,
opportunities
of finding
the movement
occurs.
its threads
have the odor
of individuals
it is
therefore,
very easily
recognized.
*
i have seen excellent movements bloom on the floor
in old leaning houses,
in small places where every foot of space is likely
to be occupied,
it is not easy to carry out
i have seen fine individuals gathered,
it may seem ridiculous
to say
give the city a thorough soaking of
stable urine, at the temperature of 86
degrees, using the urine in proportions
of one part urine to five parts debt,
downing a wineglassfull for each, then
cover the city with fresh sod, cover
with tents.
*
the movement is the true individual bloom
and permeates public spaces, shit or
other material in which it may—
the movement is represented by a delicate
thin network of thinnish threads which traverse
the city or shit.
under favorable circumstances it blooms and
spreads rapidly and in time produces individuals,
as we call them.
the individuals bear
myriads of ideas which are
analogous to seeds, and these ideas
become diffused
in the atmosphere and
fall upon the ground.
by propagation
by division
*
the simplest mathematical models of
swarms generally represent individuals (n.)
as following three rules:
1 move in the same direction as your neighbors;
2 remain close to your neighbors;
3 avoid collisions with your neighbors;