MYCELIA

MYCELIA
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In Ferris Jabr’s words “a brainless slime mold that redefines intelligence… they solve mazes and mimic the layout of manmade transportation networks, all without a brain or nervous system.” In particular, P. Polycephalum leaves a trail of translucent slime, a marker to avoid areas it has already traveled. An externalized spatial memory to explore new frontiers and push boundaries, with excellent efficiency. This is the salient quality that inspired Mycelia, the first collaboration between composer/producer ffaux, and visual artist synthcoder. Mycelia is an AV work infusing the behavior and feeling of a living organism through custom code written in HLSL, implemented in Unreal Engine. The interactive real time visuals mimic the mold’s growth through space and time, with up to 3 species at a time. Frequency analysis of the music provides audio parameters which are used to drive the mold’s growth. Secondly, Mycelia is also a living organism’s attempt to understand another with curiosity, fascination, and great reverence. The scenography is laid out in such a way that it shrouds the viewer a spatial experience. With two separate projectors, one for the background and one for a monolith, both running a separate instance of Unreal Engine. As there is no set border between them, the distance between artist and viewer distorts — born of code, bound by copper. A movement of growth and decay. We invite you to experience this.

ffaux & synthcoder