/0:26 min. illustration trailer/

 

THE SOUND OF GROWING

Real time sound installation

2016

Mycellium of living bioluminescent mushrooms, real time sound

The sound of growing is a real time audiovisual project addressing the relation between light and sound, nature and art(ificiality), confronting the cycle of life and ephemerality. The only visible object in the completely dark room is a jar filled with mycelium of living bioluminescent mushrooms. Light coming out of the jar is at first very little, thus emphasis is put on the undulating sound.

Time plays a key role in the project. When the mushroom is in the mycelium state, the light coming from it is very dim, but later when it starts bearing fruit the light becomes stronger. The strongest light is produced when the fruits are ripe and ready to produce spores. Once the spores are disseminated, the mushroom dries and stops to shine till the time when spores create new mycelium. The whole process takes months, sometimes years. The sound in the installation, generated in real time by the changes in the bioluminescent light, accompanies the cycle of the mushroom’s life. This means that the frequency of the undulating sound rises when the light exuded by the mushroom becomes stronger. The changes that are minute become more or less audible in the course of the mushroom’s life cycle.

Apart from the main concept of the mushroom’s cycle of life translated into sound, the intention is to create a space where the limits of the real ask themselves if the dim bioluminescent light is real or just some kind of hallucination. They might also ask themselves whether the mushrooms are real and not produced artificially, which in turn might blur the boundaries between the real and the artificial. The viewers might also expect some kind of climax that does not happen. So they may be either disappointed or just intrigued by both nature and artificiality at the same time.

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