Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

[Aviva Rahmani]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
I am very interested in this thread because I'm very interested in literal 
mycelium. My project, The Blued Trees Symphony, which Kathy participated in in 
2015, is seeking Earth rights protection for forest ecosystems. The 
communicative relationships between mycellium as proof of alternate sentience 
are crucial to that argument. The week of June 18, I'll be participating in an 
interdsiciplianry workshop at Hubbard Brooks reserve in NH, where we'll be 
looking at a variety of ways to sonify aspects of forest systems- water, leaves 
etc, but no one in attendance is sonifying mycellium. Is anyone trying to 
sonify actual mycelium? I look forward to following posts on topic.

Aviva Rahmani, PhD
www.ghostn...@ghostnets.com 
Watch ³Blued Trees²:  https://vimeo.com/135290635 
www.gulftogulf.org  
 
 

On 6/8/18, 1:59 PM, "empyre-boun...@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of 
Christina McPhee"  wrote:

--empyre- soft-skinned space--

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Re: [-empyre-] Introduction

[Christina McPhee]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Reading about Mai-ling’s architectural design work in the Liverpool
Biennial suddenly reminds me of some superb and whimsical mycelium
furniture by DEZEEN - by chance encountered at the London Design Week show
at Somerset House last September 2017:

https://www.dezeen.com/2017/09/20/mushroom-mycelium-timber-suede-like-furniture-sebastian-cox-ninela-ivanova-london-design-festival/


— on the commercial end of design research ...

Bests

Christina







On Fri, Jun 8, 2018 at 8:06 AM High, Kathy  wrote:

> --empyre- soft-skinned space--
> Dear empyre Community!
>
> Greetings. And forgive my delayed introduction, but I have been traveling.
> Thank you Renate and Tim for your continued dedication to empyre and
> keeping it going as a community based discussion! And thank you Shu Lea for
> pulling us fungal types all together!
>
> By way of introduction I would like to talk about the project that I am
> currently coordinating called NATURE Lab. NATURE Lab stands for North Troy
> Art, Technology and Urban Research in Ecology. This project started about 6
> years ago in tandem with an amazing community media arts organization that
> I have been on the board of directors for the past 13 years called The
> Sanctuary for Independent Media. The Sanctuary started in an old church in
> North Central Troy, New York, about 150 miles north of New York City in a
> post-industrial city that is at the head of the Hudson River. At The
> Sanctuary, we have dedicated our energies to develop a space for
> independent voices, politics and art creation in a neighborhood that is
> economically and environmentally devastated. We have created a local
> “campus" repurposing abandoned lots and buildings (think Detroit). We have
> an ongoing presentation series of music, film and speakers, a low power FM
> radio station with local news shows, youth media and environmental
> education workshops, and have planted multiple gardens and food forests.
>
> Situated one block from the Hudson River, we find our location adjacent to
> brownfields, industrial waste remains and an abundance of toxic lead soil.
> NATURE Lab seeks to understand and remediate this urban landscape and
> create new resources and inspiration in the urban ecologies around us. We
> have just purchased an old building (this is among three others that we
> have) for $7500. We will develop this space into the home for NATURE Lab,
> with a community bio science lab offering ongoing workshops and eco-artist
> projects to create a sense of our surroundings and an appreciation for our
> ruderal ecologies.
>
> When Shu Lea came to us this past spring with the idea of joining the
> Mycelium Network Society, we jumped at the chance to do so. I have been
> close to Shu Lea since the 1980s when we were in NYC together. As my own
> media work has shifted to a focus on bioart, and ecological systems and
> concerns, the opportunity to collaborate with a rhizomic network of
> nurturing like minds seemed perfect. The work I have done with mycelium has
> been around soil remediation. Five years ago the eco-artist Oliver
> Kellhammer was in residence at NATURE Lab. Oliver is a permaculturist and
> artist who works extensively with plighted environments thinking about
> re-growth and recovery – the symbiont relationships that we all need to
> consider now. We used mycelium as an accumulator in a toxic soil bed – and
> it was truly successful. But what to do with that material in the end is a
> question we still struggle with!
>
> Going forward, an architect Mae-Ling Lokko, who teaches in the
> Architecture School at my university (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
> will be working with NATURE Lab to think through mycelium’s strengths. Mae
> is in UK at present for the Liverpool Biennial using mycelium for an
> exhibition at RIBA. Mae is interested in thinking about “how to develop a
> staged performance piece on the ‘natural decay’ of the mycelium structure
> that is built in Liverpool as the focus for a project for the Mycelium
> Network Society.” She has made a 20 foot tunnel with mycelium panels and is
> “ thinking about how to use this opportunity to ‘stage’ [the mycelium’s]
> graceful return into the environment.”
>
> I thank Shu Lea for this opportunity to join forces and share our creative
> energies! Also thank you to everyone for your wonderful posts to date.
> More to come, Kathy
>
>
>
>
> ___
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
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Re: [-empyre-] hello, introduction, mycelia

[patrick lichty]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--
I'm finding the mycelian network metaphor really interesting, as a friend here, 
Flounder Lee, did a piece at the Concrete Gsllery in Dubai the dealt with the 
notion of fungal networks and trees.
What fascinates me is the posthuman metaphor of networks in nature and the 
global nature of nature, and possible fungal nature of electronic nets.
Being that I have been investigating the network art of Robert Adrian X for the 
last few years with Josephine Bosma, this conversation is particularly off 
interest.

Cheers, and trying to come out of hibernation.

-Original Message-
From: empyre-boun...@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au 
 On Behalf Of Vanouse, Paul
Sent: Wednesday, June 6, 2018 9:06 PM
To: soft_skinned_space 
Subject: [-empyre-] hello, introduction, mycelia

--empyre- soft-skinned space-- Hi all, thanks for 
orgainizing this thread Shu Lea!
and thanks renate and empyre!

I’m an artist and professor at the University at Buffalo. For a few years I’ve 
been directing a center for biological art called Coalesce. In 19 years 
teaching at UB, this has been the most exciting thing I’ve been a part of. 
Coalesce is a hybrid studio laboratory facility dedicated to enabling hands-on 
creative engagement with the tools and technologies of the life sciences, a 
place where a place where artists, designers and architects actively learn, use 
and create, using life sciences technologies as their medium; scientists 
explore broader cultural meanings of their work; and philosophers and social 
scientists interact in a tangible way with the processes of the life sciences. 
But, it is a place where such disciplinary labels are challenged and hybrid 
creative practices are incubated. Our big sister is SymbioticA in Perth, who 
has been a model and collaborator in some of our activities. We offer courses 
and graduate lab space through the art department, public workshops, and four 
to six artist residencies every year.  In fact, the next deadline for residency 
applications is June 30;-)  http://www.coalesce.buffalo.edu

As an artist, I’ve been working with DNA for nearly twenty years. Impassioned 
amateurism and interdisciplinarity have guided my art practice. I have come to 
thrive upon the strange challenges and risks that I continually confront 
pushing the limits of such materials to visually communicate. In projects like 
"Latent Figure Protocol" (06-09), "Suspect Inversion Center" (2012) and 
"America Project" (2016) I’ve tried to challenge to the cultural authority of 
DNA Fingerprinting and genetic identity.  My intention in all three works was 
to dethrone the most authoritative image of our time, the “DNA Fingerprint” by 
deconstructing the notion of the DNA image as “natural” by artistically 
“constructing” them.  Making recognizable pictures with DNA imaging to 
undermine reductive slogans like “you are your DNA” and “DNA is destiny.” 

For the last few years, I’ve been working on a project called “Labor”, which is 
a factory (and live bio-media installation) that produces the smell of human 
sweat, but using only skin bacteria in industrial fermentation tanks. The scent 
of human sweat is created by bacteria such as Staph epidermidis, Propioni and 
Coryne bacteria that metabolize our excretions in fascinating ways—some 
aerobically, others anaerobically, others only partially digesting fatty acids 
to produce funky intermediate products.  Its meant as a strange nostalgia for 
humans in an era where increasingly non-human labor is used to produce many 
foodstuffs and other commodities and materials.  

Alongside this, I’ve just begun my first mycellium endeavor this Spring based 
on induced melanin expression in Neurospora crassa. It becomes part of the cell 
walls. Genetically and phenotypically, black microbial forms and networks. 
These two current projects stem from my molecular biology work with DNA, as 
they aim to complicate simplistic senses of individual and group (human and 
racial) identity.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing the network grow and take on new threads … 
and fruiting bodies!
I’m happy to help facillitate here in Buffalo!
We like to collaborate;-)

Cheers all,
pv

ps— A sad, but also, a fond farewell to Marilouise Kroker.  She and Arthur 
would have been great to have with us all as we discuss this as they both 
engage artists, technology and theory in poetic and catalytic ways. I met them 
in 1994, when I was doing my MFA at CMU. They were really encouraging and 
influential on my work—among the first theorists that I felt I truly connected 
with as a new media artist.  



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http://empyre.library.cornell.edu


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[-empyre-] Introduction

[High, Kathy]

--empyre- soft-skinned space--Dear empyre Community!

Greetings. And forgive my delayed introduction, but I have been traveling. 
Thank you Renate and Tim for your continued dedication to empyre and keeping it 
going as a community based discussion! And thank you Shu Lea for pulling us 
fungal types all together!

By way of introduction I would like to talk about the project that I am 
currently coordinating called NATURE Lab. NATURE Lab stands for North Troy Art, 
Technology and Urban Research in Ecology. This project started about 6 years 
ago in tandem with an amazing community media arts organization that I have 
been on the board of directors for the past 13 years called The Sanctuary for 
Independent Media. The Sanctuary started in an old church in North Central 
Troy, New York, about 150 miles north of New York City in a post-industrial 
city that is at the head of the Hudson River. At The Sanctuary, we have 
dedicated our energies to develop a space for independent voices, politics and 
art creation in a neighborhood that is economically and environmentally 
devastated. We have created a local “campus" repurposing abandoned lots and 
buildings (think Detroit). We have an ongoing presentation series of music, 
film and speakers, a low power FM radio station with local news shows, youth 
media and environmental education workshops, and have planted multiple gardens 
and food forests.

Situated one block from the Hudson River, we find our location adjacent to 
brownfields, industrial waste remains and an abundance of toxic lead soil. 
NATURE Lab seeks to understand and remediate this urban landscape and create 
new resources and inspiration in the urban ecologies around us. We have just 
purchased an old building (this is among three others that we have) for $7500. 
We will develop this space into the home for NATURE Lab, with a community bio 
science lab offering ongoing workshops and eco-artist projects to create a 
sense of our surroundings and an appreciation for our ruderal ecologies.

When Shu Lea came to us this past spring with the idea of joining the Mycelium 
Network Society, we jumped at the chance to do so. I have been close to Shu Lea 
since the 1980s when we were in NYC together. As my own media work has shifted 
to a focus on bioart, and ecological systems and concerns, the opportunity to 
collaborate with a rhizomic network of nurturing like minds seemed perfect. The 
work I have done with mycelium has been around soil remediation. Five years ago 
the eco-artist Oliver Kellhammer was in residence at NATURE Lab. Oliver is a 
permaculturist and artist who works extensively with plighted environments 
thinking about re-growth and recovery – the symbiont relationships that we all 
need to consider now. We used mycelium as an accumulator in a toxic soil bed – 
and it was truly successful. But what to do with that material in the end is a 
question we still struggle with!

Going forward, an architect Mae-Ling Lokko, who teaches in the Architecture 
School at my university (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) will be working with 
NATURE Lab to think through mycelium’s strengths. Mae is in UK at present for 
the Liverpool Biennial using mycelium for an exhibition at RIBA. Mae is 
interested in thinking about “how to develop a staged performance piece on the 
‘natural decay’ of the mycelium structure that is built in Liverpool as the 
focus for a project for the Mycelium Network Society.” She has made a 20 foot 
tunnel with mycelium panels and is “ thinking about how to use this opportunity 
to ‘stage’ [the mycelium’s] graceful return into the environment.”

I thank Shu Lea for this opportunity to join forces and share our creative 
energies! Also thank you to everyone for your wonderful posts to date.
More to come, Kathy




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