ROCK CHERRY TREE BLOSSOMS

Photography Installation | BioArt Seoul | Gwacheon National Science Museum | 2015

Media: BioArt

Process: mycelium growing in petri dish, oats, agar, nutrients/Photography

Size: 24" X 36"

Rock Cherry Tree Blossoms explore the discourse between art, science and technology. Rhizomorph mycelium begins its revolutionary, life-enhancing work by spreading widely, branching and linking, waxing strong under right conditions. Its colourful and multifarious fruits rise from the nurturing substrate and bloom forth in amazing profusion, lasting but a few days, feeding critters, opening minds, gifting the world with beauty, seeding other mycelia, and subsiding. It is among the most successful organisms on the planet and it functions as a natural Inter-net. Mycelia display complex systems of communal and self- organized social behaviours. As they build their beautiful networks, they expose their processes of decision-making regarding performance and living. Mycelium is vital in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems for their role in the decomposition of plant material. They contribute to the organic fraction of soil. For the past four years, I have worked at the School of Visual Arts (NY) Bio Art Laboratory in a biology laboratory, sometimes under the mentorship of the Bio-Art pioneer and founder of the Nature Lab Suzanne Anker, to understand the behaviour of these organisms from the art viewpoint and capture their ephemeral beauty.

BIOFILM is communal or populational formation of microorganisms in which cells adhere to each other on environmental surfaces.