Symbiotica

Symbiotica is an interactive art installation designed for the public to contemplate the concept of symbiosis and mutually beneficial relationships and how we as humans need to co-operate together in order to become better co-inhabitants of the planet.

This work is inspired by mycelium, the vegetative part of fungi that grows in a vast, largely underground network connecting plants and trees together exchanging nutrients for sugars. It is the great decomposer of dead matter, creating nitrogen that is essential to support life. 

Without mycelium, life on this planet would not exist. 

Symbiotica is a cyborg sculpture garden that lights up in unison to the heartbeats of participants when they place their fingers on connected pulse-sensors. The garden comprises a network of fiber optic lights representing the extensive network mycelium forms underground and the flowers represent the fruiting body of fungi i.e. the mushroom. The flowers are a composition of bio-material grown and cast from mycelium, discarded single use plastics, concrete and LEDs. These flowers are connected to micro-controllers that communicate with installed pulse sensors that participants interact with. 

Using this interactivity of human participant, bio-sensors, bio-material, thrash and technology as a segue can we envision a planet of interconnectedness where we humans see ourselves as a significant contributing element of the natural world and not a thing apart. What would that world look like? What needs to change?