Binaural mix of one of the second phase of the sound installation's broadcasts at Rencontres d'ArTec 15&16 November 2023
[best listened to with headphones]:

MYCELIUM GARDEN project - winner of EUR ArTec's Symbiosis call for projects

The objects and installations developed in this project are built as a basis for rethinking the question of inter-species communication, conceived not as a process based on shared culture and intentionality, but as a form of co-production of meaning by « adjusting differences », according to Dominique Guillo’s concept (Guillo, 2019).
In this project, the rhythm of the mycelium (its development, its growth cycle, the signal we were able to extract) guided each of our actions. This required adaptation and the ability to adapt, to readjust our expectations, to readjust the project itself. The result of this research is the uncovering of a process rather than the production of an object. Isolating the mycelium’s electrical activity from the recorded signal would require new resources and new experiments in controlled environments.
The multispecific assemblages built during these experiments have led us to develop a methodology of attention that tends towards the search for objective knowledge, built up over the course of experimentation. This research-creation experience led us to reflect on the notions of interface, translation, transduction and scaling of data between different systems/ecosystems: between living humans, non-humans, machines and AI. In this work, we wanted to highlight all the stages in this translation that enable us to access an auditory dimension of a mycelium/human relationship. Uncovering these processes and sharing this approach with the public has enabled us to communicate about mycelium and engage in a critical dialogue about interfaces. In this way, the study of the notion of symbiosis and its application to this project served as a tool to shed light on the notion of complexity, and to produce mediations on this notion for different audiences.
This installation also invites us to question the aesthetic stakes of forms generated automatically or, in this case, guided by non-human processes, by showing the fragmentation and dissolution of intentionality in this type of production, which synthesizes and explores unexplored niches in our cultural spaces.

///Acknowledgements///
We would like to thank the funding organizations for the "Mycelium Garden" research project: EUR ArTec and MSH Paris Nord, as well as the team working on this project: Anne Sèdes, Alain Bonardi, David Fierro from CICM; Charlotte Janis and Roberto Dell'Orco from Spora; Guillaume Peureux and Julien Schuh from CSLF Nanterre; Stephen Whitmarsh from ICM; Hugo Scurto from ArTec; Salim Mohamed Aissi from the MLIA Team - ISIR - CNRS - INSERM - Sorbonne University.
Institute for Intelligent Systems and Robotics (ISIR) - CNRS - INSERM - Sorbonne University. We would also like to thank Adrien Zanni (CICM - MUSIDANSE/Paris 8) for the design of the 2d/WFS ambisonic device and Paul Goutmann (ArTec - CICM - MUSIDANSE/Paris 8) for the design of the 3d ambisonic device. 
This project was designed using ANR BBDMI tools.

Photos (c) Université Paris 8 / Service création audiovisuelle - Patrick Masclaux

Mycelium Garden - One iteration of the sound installation - phase 2

diane schuh /// composer, researcher & landscape architect

Mycelium Garden - One iteration of the sound installation - phase 2

lemondeautre