The Fungi (de)Composer is an ongoing art-driven research project in which Jasper van den Ende and Conor Croasdell collaborate with Fungi species to compose images through biological degradation. The different phases of the (de)composing process are documented and analysed to study the decomposing process of the film’s organic layers. Our aim is to provide the right circumstances for fungi to expand their mycelial networks rendered visual through the optical mediation of a slideshow projector. In this way, we want to shape familiarity for the human spectators and in turn generate recognition for the agencies of non-human worlds. How can we co-create with non-human actors and share (or even relinquish) authorship?
In 2020, The Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam launched a massive conservation project to save roughly 42.000 slides of Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken (1925-1990). Ed used colour slides from the early 1950s and kept them at home in a rural area heavily influenced by seasonal changes which formed an ideal situation for mould to grow. Ed himself found it charming, “almost like the effect of craquelure on oil paintings.”
The slides in the Fungi (de)Composer projector are showing this "drawings" of mycelium networks, treated first in a controlled lab to nurture the mycelium before exposing them to the harsher environment of the slide projector. Here, the fungi grows and continue to expand its mycelial network while contending with the microbial life local to the exhibition space. This natural process leaves poetic imprints that are often seen as unwanted in photo archives and places of conservation alike. Intrigued by the archiving desire to conserve images, the Fungi (de)Composer projector celebrates—like Ed van der Elksen—degradation and the non-permanent state of images and brings other, often unseen, forms of life into focus.
Growing process
