GMU:Design with Fungi: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 20:31, 15 April 2024

Credits: 4 SWS

Venue: DIY Biolab @ Marienstraße 7b, Room 204

Lecturer(s): Alessandro Volpato

The steadily growing population and the associated need for more building and manufacturing activities pose almost insurmountable challenges for architecture and the industry as a whole. The need for more sustainable alternatives pushed research towards possibly grown materials, e.g. materials composed of agro/forestry leftovers processed by microbes. Fungal composites is just one of many example, and could therefore offer a promising alternatives to resource intense construction and fabrication materials.

These fungal composites can be produced in the near future in a way that is both climate-friendly and cost-effective. In addition, they can be easily separated, fully composted and used as fertilizer after the end of their life, thus closing the loop and making of them a "circular material". Thus, the use of fungi could create a lightweight and fully circular building system.

In this course we will use artistic approaches to design with Fungi, understand their way of growing on natural matter, explore how they relate to other easily cultivable living beings, and create own art-work out of this experience.

In the end the artistic pieces will be exhibited at the Winterwerkschau.

Students / Projets

Alessandro Volpato - Myco-Tetris
Amy Zimber, Marleen Kölmel - HOW TO MAKE SLIME MOLD LAUGH
Dania González Sanabria: The migrant's Cabinet.
Elena Payer - mushroom and centipede-like creature / mushroom hand
Gift Lalicha Lalitsasivimol - scoby
Jenny Soggia - Accessorize Nature
Fritzi Buhtz - Hyphen

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-[[File:Dania González Sanabria. Cabinet , images 2.jpg|alt=The migrant's Cabinet: This is a work in process composed of several components: There is a world map globe, whose sphere has been replaced by a transparent acrylic one. Inside it I have grown slime mold. On a linen flag hanging from a flagpole embedded in the wall, approximately 2 meters high, I am sewing with golden thread words that I extract from testimonies that I am collecting from Cuban migrants, printed on papers. These testimonies answer questions such as: When, how and where did you emigrate? by what route, route or routes? Why did you emigrate? What were you looking for? What were you escaping from? What are you still looking for? I attach the pieces of paper with the testimonies to the linen in a branched manner, as if tracing map routes or webs of the slime mold itself. There will also be three hemispheres, similar to the larger globe, with maps delicately engraved or printed on this transparent material. Inside, I will plant the slime mold samples in the place where Cuba is drawn on the map, feeding those organisms in the zones where other places are drawn (places in the world where the Cuban diaspora settles), creating the slime mold to "migrate" inside these small maps, emulating the Cuban migratory routes.   Statement: The construction of this piece takes the testimonies, anecdotes and statements of Cuban migrants as guides to plant living organisms, and trace tissues, using the molds as a metaphorical image of migrant communities. I intend to redraw the traces of displacements, ramifications and disintegrations configured by the Cuban migrant collectivity through expeditions detonated by necessity, hostilities and utopias, representing social, political, ethical and sentimental networks, interconnected in the same way microorganisms grow.|thumb|The migrant's Cabinet. Dania González S:]]
 ''Credits:'' 4 [[SWS]]
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 *[[GMU:Design with Fungi / Alessandro Volpato / Myco-Tetris|Alessandro Volpato - Myco-Tetris]]
 *[[Amy Zimber, Marleen Kölmel]] - HOW TO MAKE SLIME MOLD LAUGH
+*[[Dania González Sanabria: The migrant's Cabinet.]]
-=== '''- Accessorizing Nature''' ===
+*Elena Payer - [[mushroom and centipede-like creature]] / [[mushroom hand]]
-[[Jenny Soggia]]
+*[[Gift Lalicha Lalitsasivimol - scoby]]
+*[[Jenny Soggia]] - Accessorize Nature
-[[Fritzi Buhtz]]
+*[[Fritzi Buhtz]] - Hyphen