We are all Lichens
Symbiogenesis
Literally 'becoming by living together', refers to the crucial role of symbiosis in major evolutionary innovations. The term usually is reserved for the major transition to eukaryotes and to photosynthesising eukaryotic algae and plants by endosymbiosis.
Fungi, bacteria and archaea inhabit various forest habitats: foliage, the wood of living trees, the bark surface, ground vegetation, roots and the rhizosphere, litter, soil, deadwood, rock surfaces, invertebrates, wetlands or the atmosphere, each of which has its own specific features, such as nutrient availability or temporal dynamicy and specific drivers that affect microbial abundance, the level of dominance of bacteria or fungi as well as the composition of their communities. However, several microorganisms, and in particular fungi, inhabit or even connect multiple habitats, and most ecosystem processes affect multiple habitats.
An endosymbiont or endobiont is any organism that lives within the body or cells of another organism most often, though not always, in a mutualistic relationship.
Connecting into the Microbial Forest
Nanotopia's work with bringing fungi biodata and fungi frequencies into mixed reality installations, VR is to speak of our shared environment, humankind's Other-than-human/Beyond-human entanglements.
People often view -nature- as something outside of themselves; nature is over there, in a forest, or nature is the weather.
Being Terrestrial- humans require clean air, clean water, and clean food to thrive and survive, as does most oxygen-breathing life on Earth. Earth. Humans come from the Earth; therefore, they are a part of this incredible organism. However, centuries of religious oppression have sadly sought to remove humans from the natural world—position humankind as "man-kind" and remove it from nature, from being animal.
Being Human is a collection, an entanglement of organisms that make up the whole, a Holobiont. Fungi are a significant aspect of our human entanglement.
Locally sourced fungal mycelium connects to the Symbiogenesis experience. Sending its bio-electrical energy through analogue and digital synthesizers, creates a speculative forest soundscape, and interacts with projected, generative visual data. Humans connect with the living fungi forest through touch-pad-enabled sculptural objects and through visiting a microbial, virtual forest. The more Humans connect with the microbial forest, their vision alters, and they see their true nature as Human-Holobiont, their entanglements and connection with the fungal mycelium and forest biome.
AR elements activate through Suminagashi* markers made with mushroom inks.
Animals and fungi share a common ancestor and branched away from plants sometime around 1.1 billion years ago. Only later did animals and fungi separate on the genealogical tree of life, making fungi more closely related to humans than plants.
*Suminagashi 墨 流 し or "floating ink" is the process of marbling plain paper with water and ink to transform it into something vibrant and colourful. It originated in Japan as early as the 12th century. Suminagashi resembles tree rings, and tree bark.
