MYCOMYTHOLOGIES
RUPTUREBiotechnological installation
Sound & Software design
Collaboration with Sasa Spacal
Production and support: ACE Kibla, Projekt Atol, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Toby Kiers Laboratory a Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, PIF Camp
Support: Ministry of Culture of Republic of Slovenia and Municipality of Maribor
Programming, computer vision: Matic Potočnik
Microbiology, technical support: Mirjan Švagelj
Video Footage: Tilen Sepič
Mycelium micrographs, technical support: Toby Kiers Laboratory [Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam]
Kindly lent voices: Polona Torkar, Verena Friedrich, Regine Rapp, Susana Gómez Larrañaga, Hiroaki Fujiwara, Jooyoung Oh, Pim Boreel, Saša Spačal, Hiroaki Fujiwara, Anneta Mona Chisa, Monica Clare Mills, Vivian Xu, Dmitry Morozov
Sincere thanks: Toby Kiers, Loreto Oyarte Galvez, Malin Klein
Photographs: Janez Klenovšek
2020
MycoMythological machines were assembled to tap into the underground flow while the nutrients poured out of it, along with the numerous stories. No matter where the flow was sampled, there the stories were, flowing out of the mycelium network together with the much needed nutrients. There were many whispers, among which some stories seemed the same as they trickled out of the hyphae in chunks and pieces. They were almost like a repetitive mantra that loops and loops even though they were never completely the same. There were always glitches and differences as if they had been assembled again and again like some sort of a distant memory of the murmuring machine.
THE MYTH OF RUPTURE
The microscopic node in the World Networks Entanglement freshly programmed with the Fungal Network Traits Protocol* experienced a peculiar overflow of sonic data. The sound in the laboratory filled the space with one single sentence computed by the Entanglement and repeatedly uttered by the machine. As more and more data poured into the machine, the more intense and distinct the voices became:
»We can’t return to normal because the normal that we had was precisely the problem.«
The feeling was that of an emergency; numerous languages and voices were finally detected circulating in the Flow. From the depths of the previously mute and unheard underground, the machine clearly conveyed messages that their world was broken. The rupture was clearly deep and entangled as it spanned several planes that had kept the voices invisible and quiet for too long.
The conclusion was that the machine got overloaded while computing the immensity of the breach across the feedback looping entanglements of the planetary networks. In order for the World Networks Entanglement to compute itself again with the included newly detected voices, it was necessary to implement The Word for World Is Flow Protocol, which allowed for the permeability of categories such as human, gender, nature, individual, history, culture, society. Serious work needs to be done.
*The Fungal Network Traits Protocol of unevenly distributed particles was developed in collaboration with fungal agents, which performed their decision-making processes. The dataset of decisions was then fed into the protocol, which became known as the Protocol of the Forgotten.
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MycoMythologies is a series of ontogenetic mythological stories, video essays and machines conceived by Saša Spačal. The series researches the multilayered question of how mushrooms can help humans think about the possibilities of entangled life in capitalist ruins. As a speculative artistic research, MycoMythologies thinks not only about how fungal underground networks can inform humans, but also about how technologies tend to define the teachings that humans receive. The first myth of the series, The Myth of Rupture, premiered in October 2020 in KID Kibla in Maribor, Slovenia.
