SYMBIOSIS
2022.3 - 2022.11
TEAM｜ Xiaoting Tan, Meiyi Jiang, Vicki ZhiWei Hong
SUPERVISORS ｜ Paul Bavister, Emma Kate Matthews
Trees are communicating and sharing information right under your feet, using a mycelium network: a complex and collaborative structure that has become known as the ‘Wood Wide Web’. Trees use the mycelium as pathways to connect, feed and communication with one another. Parent trees can identify their relatives and send signals and nutrition through mycelium networks. Through the mycelium network, the forest becomes a single organism with group intelligence.
Symbiosis is an exploration of the language of trees from a non-anthropocentric perspective, and mycelium is a design collaborator. Five handmade bio-electrical sensors are placed at different locations in Epping Forest, transmitting data on the mycelium's vital activity (electrical signals) in real-time to the exhibition space via a cloud-based network. This is an immersive audio-visual experience, the changing soundscape represents the whisper of the mycelium, and the flowing light presents the nutrient transport between the mycelium. In this project, we hope the audience understands the world from the perspective of the rhizome, has a dialogue with the forest and lives in symbiosis with nature.
Individual plants are interconnected by a network of underground mycelium: a dazzlingly complex collaborative structure that has come to be known as the Wood Wide Web. The mycorrhizal networks are thought
In the forest, there are about 300 miles of
mycelium under every footstep we take. Trees use the mycelium as pathways to connect, feed and communicate one to another. Parent trees can identify their relatives, and send signals through mycelium networks.
to connect up to 90% of all land plants.
SYMBIOSIS is an audio-visual installation performance formed by mycelium and human collaboration, where the installation replicates the form of the mycelium, the sound and light are controlled by mycelium signals and the activity of the live audience.
SOUND DESIGN
The Bio-electrical Signal of Mycelium
Tiny changes in electrical conductivity are measured between the electrodes and fed into a programmable microcontroller. It is a 'bio-electric sensor' made of a 555 timer operating. It can produce a pulse width modulated output which represents micro-current changes, tens of thousands of readings per second. Our coding collects data in groups of 1000 every 2 seconds, then calculates and outputs the average.
Experiment indoors
Recording the bioelectrical signals of Lion's Mane and Turkey Tail while varying the environmental factors of temperature, humidity, light and sound.
The experiment in Epping Forest
The bio-electrical signals of mycelium in 5 different locations in Epping Forest were recorded for 6 hours, and the data were transmitted into MAX/MSP for sound design.
SONIC MOOD BOARD
By analysing the data measured in five locations in the Epping Forest, a general judgement was made on the activity of the mycelium in different environments. The sound design focuses on creating a sense of communication between the mycelium in five different locations, the interlocking sound creatures a sense of the mycelium breath under the forest floor.
click here to play sound example
VISUAL DESIGN
The Slime Moulds in Petri dishes grew into different veins and patterns due to the amount and position of oatmeal feedings.
Observing the morphology of Slime Moulds and other types of mycelium under the microscope, we simulated these different morphologies with optical fibres.
Date set of original data
Duration of light on
Variables between adjacent data
Lighting address
Uncertainty of data
The error range of the bioelectric signal of the mycelium, influenced by the system and the environment, becomes a proxy variable for uncertainty and acts in the variation of the lighting pattern to give the lighting system a sense of immediacy of play.
INSTALLATION IN BLACK BOX