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The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
Sound for Fungi. Homage to Indeterminacy
Theresa Schubert
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Credits: Rémi Chauvin
Credits: Rémi Chauvin
Sound for Fungi. Homage to Indeterminacy began as a laboratory experiment where Schubert played sinus frequencies to fungi mycelia she collected from forests near her home in Berlin. After weeks of observing these collected specimens housed in custom-built sound-insulated boxes, most showed a positive response to the influence of sound by growing faster and denser than samples grown in silence.
The interactive video installation simulates Schubert’s experiment where sound influenced mycelium growth. Audiences can explore this biological process by using a tracking sensor where hand movements simulate the role of a sound frequency and change the fungi’s growth in realtime. The digital 3D environment shifts between macro and cellular level perspectives, revealing fragile topologies comprised of multiple nodes and connections, offering a glimpse into the complexity of the underground network of microbes that connect the ‘Wood Wide Web.’
The title draws reference to American music composer John Cage’s development of "indeterminacy" as an improvisational technique where aspects of a composition are left open to chance or free-choice. A further reference is the work of Anna Tsing and mycologist Alan Ryner who have linked mushrooms to this notion of indeterminacy because of their shape-shifting gestalt. Some fungi keep expanding and growing through different life cycles and therefore, in theory, are immortal.
Improvisation—not so much as a musical process but understood as a natural life phenomenon—represents a condition of existence itself. This state of being without intention enables spontaneity and emergence, and has been a guiding principle through Schubert’s artistic practice. By allowing many pathways and experiences of the fungi data in this work, Schubert applies the same open-ended codes to audience engagement—facilitating an interspecies experience which works best when the visitor brings tranquility and patience to their interaction with this.
The interactive video installation simulates Schubert’s experiment where sound influenced mycelium growth. Audiences can explore this biological process by using a tracking sensor where hand movements simulate the role of a sound frequency and change the fungi’s growth in realtime. The digital 3D environment shifts between macro and cellular level perspectives, revealing fragile topologies comprised of multiple nodes and connections, offering a glimpse into the complexity of the underground network of microbes that connect the ‘Wood Wide Web.’
The title draws reference to American music composer John Cage’s development of "indeterminacy" as an improvisational technique where aspects of a composition are left open to chance or free-choice. A further reference is the work of Anna Tsing and mycologist Alan Ryner who have linked mushrooms to this notion of indeterminacy because of their shape-shifting gestalt. Some fungi keep expanding and growing through different life cycles and therefore, in theory, are immortal.
Improvisation—not so much as a musical process but understood as a natural life phenomenon—represents a condition of existence itself. This state of being without intention enables spontaneity and emergence, and has been a guiding principle through Schubert’s artistic practice. By allowing many pathways and experiences of the fungi data in this work, Schubert applies the same open-ended codes to audience engagement—facilitating an interspecies experience which works best when the visitor brings tranquility and patience to their interaction with this.
Simulation development: Sage Jenson
Experiment done at Technical University Berlin with support of Prof. Vera Meyer, Carsten Pohl and Bertram Schmidt.
Studio assistant: Simona Dossi
This work has been developed within Mind the Fungi, an interdisciplinary research project (2018-20) between the Institute of Biotechnology TU Berlin and Art Laboratory Berlin funded by the Citizen Science Initiative of TU Berlin.
Experiment done at Technical University Berlin with support of Prof. Vera Meyer, Carsten Pohl and Bertram Schmidt.
Studio assistant: Simona Dossi
This work has been developed within Mind the Fungi, an interdisciplinary research project (2018-20) between the Institute of Biotechnology TU Berlin and Art Laboratory Berlin funded by the Citizen Science Initiative of TU Berlin.
Theresa Schubert (DE) is a Berlin-based artist exploring unconventional visions of nature, technology, and the self. Her work combines audiovisual and biomedia to conceptual and immersive installations or performances. By means of interdisciplinary methods such as biohacking, theoretical analysis, performative interpretation, and material experimentation, her works question the relation of humans to their environment and evolvement of matter and meaning beyond the Anthropos.
More recently, she works with UHD video environments and 3D Laser Scanning to challenge modes of perception and question the human-machine-nature relationship in hypertech societies.
More recently, she works with UHD video environments and 3D Laser Scanning to challenge modes of perception and question the human-machine-nature relationship in hypertech societies.