GMU:Different Worlds/Anna Wissmueller

INSIDE AND OUTSIDE WE ARE THE SAME

It's Physarum's world and we're just living in it

finished pieces

• 
• 

Impressions of the process:

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

How to create Physarum clothes:

Take a look at my Experiments to see how i learnt how to grow Physarum Poloycephalum.

I grow Physarum in a stable environment: a petri-dish and Agar Agar as a medium. To make the Physarum grow, I feed it with oat flakes once every day. After four to five days the Physarum will start growing out of the petri-dish. Or not - it is a living organism after all with its own moods and sometimes strange behaviours. After spilling out of the petri-dish it continues growing on plastic foil that i layed under the petri-dish. Or it dries out completly. Again, it is not possible to foresee exactly how it will behave. Sometimes it can be refreshed with some drops of water and continue growing on the plastic foil. Sometimes not, the experiment has failed and I need to prepare another petri-dish with agar.

If the Physarum continues to grow on the plastic foil, I lay this foil on the clothing piece I want to create with Physarum. Under the first layer of fabric has to be some aluminium foil so the Physarum stays put on one layer of fabric and does not grow on the back of the shirt. This results in four layers:

aluminium

fabric

Physarum

Plastic foil

To press the Physarum into the clothes I used seven to nine books and a 5-kilo and a 1-kilo weight that I positioned on the plastic foil. It takes around a week to completley press the Physarum, after that it is dormant and the clothes can be stored and worn. The result looks a bit like batik.

• 

When the Physarum did not grow on the plastic foil and only spilled out of the petri-dish I manually put the Physarum on plastic foil and pressed it on the fabric in the same way I did before. The results are very different.

• 
• 

The fabric looks more stained and brown. And it took a long time to completely dry it. It did not dry completly under the weights, instead I air-dryed it after 5 days under the weights.

Wearing the Physarum clothes

Wearing Physarum-Clothes is nothing that should be done frivolously. After all it is a dormant - but living - organism on your clothes. While wearing Physarum clothes you will never be alone. You will be accompanied by a single-cell slime mold.

Fashion is always a statement piece. Nobody is ever just wearing something. Clothes can express a lifestyle or a state of mind. When you choose to wear clothes that have dormant slime mold on it, an organism living on your clothes, what does that say about you? Is it disgusting? Is it to not feel alone? Would you rather have the slime grow on your skin and the clothes are just the next possible option? Not only the slime mold on the clothes is alive, the clothes itself have different life cycles: the Physarum can be removed and be regrwon in a petri-dish. In the meantime the clothes can be washed. Then the organism can be reapplied onto the clothes. And everytime a new and unique clothing piece will be created. It is growing and changing like the slime mold.

Fashion is connected to cycles, it is alsways changing. What is in today may be ugly tomorrow. Physarum has its own cycles and you can never rely on it to be suitable for a clothing piece.

When wearing Physarum clothes i am not taking part in the fast fashion world. Neither am I taking part in the sustainable fashion world, that claims to be connected to nature. I am in a different world - Physarum's world. I am sharing my body with a living organism that usually grows deep in the forest on rotten wood. When wearing fast fashion I am connected to nature, but in a disgusting way. Physarum is slimy, it is mold and at the same time can star to be moldy itself, it might smell, it might get a brownish colour when being pressed into the clothes.