Rootnetwork

2017 Installation with a Video Component
Dimensions: 36”L x 12”W x 44”H
Materials: Digital Projector, Mirror Mount, Glass Aquarium, Soil with Mycelium, Steel Stand

Various plants live in a symbiotic relationship with the mycorrhizal fungi. Learning more about how plants transmit chemical signals through their extended root network led me to construct this sculpture. I cultivated mycelium in my studio for months and simultaneously created a video animation of light signals transmitting through pathways. I presented the soil containing mycorrhizal network with a video animation projected onto the dark soil for the installation. It looked like small light signals were crawling throughout the soil. It was a visual representation of the activities going on within the soil, and secondly, it was a metaphoric attempt to communicate with the living organisms that inhabited my sculpture. Some audience members chose to feel their way through the soil and participate in an invisible microbial exchange.

I was interested in hypothesizing alternate communication methods in place of verbal, visual, or symbolic languages. The possibility of transmission through chemical/electrical signals is exciting to consider. Human brains always process chemical/electrical data; however, we rarely use such methods to communicate ideas consciously. What types of information could we communicate more efficiently if we could utilize a chemical/electrical language in our day to day conversations with other humans or other species. Could we open avenues of communicating where we cannot do so? Could we transmit data through touch or scent, and what does it mean to take agency over our chemical exchange with our ecosystems?

Rendering of sculpture with projected animation on soil.

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