Survival Kit: Mushrooms at the End of the World (and beyond)
Interactive Lecture, Sat, 23 Sept 2016, 13.00
Hannah Klaubert & Simon van der Weele
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INTRODUCTION: CLOUDS
http://www.historybyzim.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Miss-Atomic-1957.jpg
More on Miss Atomic:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/52631/4-atomic-themed-1950s-beauty-queens
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a20536/who-are-you-miss-atomic-bomb/
Some keywords:
Fungus is the scientific term for mushrooms and molds of all kinds. It is the organism in its entirety.
A mushroom is the fruit of a fungus, much like an apple is the fruit of an apple tree.
Mycelium is the root of the fungus, below the ground; from the mycelium grows the mushroom, the fruit.
Spores are the fungus’s means of procreation, dropped by the mushroom and carried by the wind or other creatures.
***Table of Content***
1. Crisis
2. Death and Decay: Fungal Forces3. Bodies
4. A Fungal Romance
5. Meet Your Companion
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I. CRISIS
- "Mushrooms" by Sylvia Plath: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHVEMogmxZ0 [14:42]
- Mushrooms and Nuclear Waste: https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8309/8046589704_77485ec9f4_b.jpg
- Chytrids and Amphibian Extinction: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/photos/000/624/62460.jpg
- Survivalists: http://www.prepperssurvive.com/start-a-mushroom-farm/
*“Our kind multiplies:
*We shall by morning
*Inherit the earth.
*Our foot's in the door.”
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II. DEATH AND DECAY: FUNGAL FORCES
‘Fungi are thus world builders, shaping environments for themselves and for others’ - Anna Tsing
Are they [mushrooms] somehow a sign of hope?
They are at least the kind of stuff that humans are capable of living with. We don’t necessarily need a pristine environment to get these mushrooms and we can have something that’s working towards, and good enough, to collaborate with other species, towards something that takes into account that trees and fungi need each other. So maybe you wouldn’t want to wipe out all of the forest. Yes, in hindsight I think that I focused on Matsutake as it’s more hopeful than lots of other fungi I could have picked. It is hopeful in a certain kind of way because it grows in disturbed landscapes.
Anna Tsing
For an interview with Anna Tsing, check this page:
http://allegralaboratory.net/auto-rewilding-landscapes-and-the-anthropocene-interview-with-anna-tsing/
Paul Stamets: http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get2/I0000k42XDdd.rzA/fit=1000x750/Paul-Stamets-IsaacHH-091005-5376.jpg
Paul's ted talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world/transcript?language=nl
Timothy Myles' text on Decompiculture: http://www.urbantilth.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/decompiculture.pdf
‘Agriculture and animal husbandry are really no more than the selective identification of a few key organisms which we have learned to symbiose with, by culturing them. We now need to learn how to grow (culture) a lot of smaller, complex communities of microorganisms and insects, and we need to do this on a big scale if we are to avert the looming ecological crisis which faces the human population on a finite planet.’
-Timothy Myles
Jae Rhim Lee: https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7227/7216296792_c05e838739_b.jpg
Jae Rhim Lee's ted talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/jae_rhim_lee
Her Burial Suit website: http://coeio.com/infinity-burial-suit/
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III. BODIES
Gastrum Britannicum - http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03249/Geastrum_britannic_3249808b.jpg
Xylaria Polymorpha - http://www.first-nature.com/fungi/images/ascomycetes/xylaria-polymorpha1.jpg
Sexy fungus - https://www.instagram.com/p/BKn3gqaB8sQ/
Spongiforma Squarepantsii - http://img.omidoo.com/sites/default/files/stock/450teaser/animals/spongiforma_squarepantsii.jpg
Pneumocystis jiroveci - http://www.ppdictionary.com/mycology/cysts_pneumocystis_jiroveci.jpg
“Why should our bodies end at the skin?” (Haraway 1990, 220)
For more Stacy Alaimo, her book: Bodily natures: Science, environment, and the material self. Indiana University Press, 2010.
Haraway, Donna. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Routledge, 2013.
More feminist/new materialist critique of the Nature/Culture division: Barad, Karen. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Duke University Press, 2007.
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IV. FUNGAL ROMANCE
Mediamatic's Urban Mushroom Farm:
http://www.mediamatic.net/231521/en/urban-mushroom-farm
Green Living Lab's Community Compost School:
http://greenlivinglab.org/our-events/the-mighty-mushroom-the-soil-food-web/
Vice Media on Fungi as "Plastic of the Future":
http://motherboard.vice.com/nl/read/schimmel-het-plastic-van-de-toekomst
You can find Kimberly Defazio's article "Machine-Thinking and the Romance of Posthumanism" here:
http://redcritique.org/WinterSpring2012/machinethinkingandtheromanceofposthumanism.htm
‘Romanticism, I argue, is not merely a particular historical manifestation of a literary sensibility. It is a broader response (literary, philosophical, cultural and political) in the post-Renaissance West to the contradictions of capitalism: contradictions which romanticism reads in terms of science and technology and, in particular, instrumental rationality.’
You can find Anna Tsing's article "Arts of Inclusion" here:
http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-May-2011/tsing.html
How can we love a mushroom?
-Anna Tsing
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V. MEET YOUR COMPANION
[Oyster Mushrooms on Coffee Grounds]
Clean your hands, your working surface and all the tools with disinfectant or alcohol. Be sure to work with gloves and not to touch the materials to avoid contamination.
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Mix 90% fresh coffee grounds and 10% of the mushroom spore in a clean mixing bowl. Distribute the spore evenly throughout the coffee.
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Load the mixture into the cultivation bag and close it up tight.
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Place your bag in a warm (15°C – 25°C) and dark place (under a bed, in a cupboard in a heated room, under the sink). During the next 3 to 4 weeks, the spawn will grow across the coffee grounds - turning the whole content of the bag white by the time it has fully colonised the mixture. Vent once in a while for 1 minute to prevent mould from spreading.
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Once the bag is completely white, place in a spot with fresh air and open wide. Spray the opening daily to keep the mixture moist. The fruit will start to grow now. Once the edges of the caps turn downwards, cut at the stems and get cooking.
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much gratitude to
Inga Lace
De Appel
White Label Coffee
Jan 19 Coffee
Radijs
Kopjes Cat Cafe
Cafe Pollux
Moe's
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further resources
Alaimo, Stacy. Bodily natures: Science, environment, and the material self.
Barad, Karen. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning.
Chen, Mel. Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect.
Haraway, Donna. When Species Meet.
Kirksey, Eben. Emergent Ecologies.
Morton, Timothy. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World.
Tsing, Anna. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins.
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bios
Hannah Klaubert is currently based in Berlin and works for an international environmental organization. She holds a Master in Cultural Analysis from the University of Amsterdam; her research revolves around narratives of environmental disaster and climate change.
Simon van der Weele is a writer and researcher based in Amsterdam. His work is driven by themes of care, death and mourning. His current job, as content writer for a shop trading in psychoactive plants, has piqued his interest in the cultural significance of the mushroom.