Fungi
They can feel you, they can heal you, they can get you high and they can get you killed — What am I talking about? Fungi of course! Let’s look a bit closer at this super interesting organism!
A fungi is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms, which includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. Fungi are the oldest living organism in the world, and the most common species on earth. Today there are over 1,5 million kinds of fungi species (that is 6 times more than plants!), even though the majority of fungal species are yet to be known. Of all those species ca 20 000 produce mushrooms, mushrooms that come in a multitude of shapes and sizes.
Fungi have what could maybe be described as a root system, that system is called mycelium. Mycelium is a highly intricate system that has more networks than our brains have neural pathways. Interestingly enough it is not only the fungi that utilises the mycelium networks, other entities use it as well. Research has shown that trees communicate with each other by using fungi mycelium as channels. The trees also use the mycelium threads as pathways to feed on another, sending nutrients through the mycelium networks.
The speculative designer Jane Anderson is obsessed with mushrooms and has done several projects involving it. She believes mushrooms may be the best weapon against climate change as mycelium has several applications from ‘eating’ plastic, to absorbing carbon dioxide, & even cleaning up nuclear spillages. Anderson shares all her fungi research on the site mycelium threads. There are other interesting examples of fungi related projects as well. Sneature is a waste-based sneaker consisting of a mushroom mycelium sole and a knitted upper sock made from animal hair that was shed while grooming, material that would otherwise have been discarded. As the sneaker consists of only three bio-based, renewable materials, it can be taken apart and recycled or industrially composted at the end of its life. Another interesting application is found in the Infinity Burial Suit created by Jae Rhim Lee, artist and founder of Coeio. The infinity burial suit is made from mushroom spores and other microorganisms that aid a body in decomposition
Fungi has also been the origin for artistic inspiration. Václav Hálek, a Czech composer, heard mushrooms singing already in the 1980's. He was at the time travelling with a mycologist (a specialist in the study of fungi). One day, they found a mushroom called the zvoneček sadní and as Halek looked more closely, he heard music, a whole symphony orchestra. From that moment Hálek dedicated his life to composing music inspired by mushrooms. He thought of them as having a capacity for non-verbal communication. A language, just like human language, only that we still don’t know how to interpret it. Building on Hálek’s legacy today is the Swedish artist Christine Ödlund who examines the communication between humans and plants, as well as plants and plants, in her work. In one of her works Ödlund sketches out the communication that happens in between trees, through the networks of the mycelium threads. She makes us see what we as humans cannot hear. At the same time she reminds us that intelligence as a concept should not be a quality reserved only for humans and animals, but should be available for organisms such as fungi as well. Hence fungi is not only a material that could be developed and used, it is also a system, a logic to learn from.
Sources
Vaclav Halek’s singing mushrooms
Christine Ödlunds art is more described here, here and here
The burial suit
The sneatures
Documentary on fungi
