Radio Mycelium & How I Hack Plant Conversations

Workshops Programme:
All workshops are free to attend.
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Radio Mycelium & How I Hack Plant Conversations
23rd Nov
Building: Piksel Studio 207
Date: 10:00-14:00

Radio Mycelium & How I Hack Plant Conversations
Martin Howse, Mindaugas Gapševičius
Keywords: Installation, tutorial, toolkit, experiments

The project invites us to experience interspecies communication and feedback loops between mycelium networks and their habitats, including other organisms and beings. It also proposes the examination of a new networked imaginary between electrochemical signals, digital data, and electromagnetic waves. The project invites the user to experience plant to plant or plant to fungi interaction by connecting an electronic interface and converting data from electrochemical to digital and back to electrochemical signal. Using allelopathy as a metaphor for plant interaction, the project questions the mechanism of translation of signals, which, through the number of generations are influenced by the information from outside, including its own transmitted information.

The experiments introduced in the tutorial will give an idea of how to grow mycelium, how to make electronic tools and attach them to living organisms, and how to use the tools for audiovisual expression. During the hands on session, we will do four experiments:

– Start growing mycelium on coffee grounds;
– Sense electric potentials in living organisms;
– Assemble and test the mycelial radio transmitter;
– Use built tools and a Pd patch provided for audiovisual expression.

The experiments are facilitated by Mindaugas Gapševičius.

Mindaugas Gapševičius, http://triple-double-u.com/
Martin Howse, http://www.1010.co.uk/org/