✎ resilients:go_ask_a_mushroom [the libarynth]

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=== Go Ask A Mushroom ===

Musings on Afterculture

By Natalia Borissova

==="We are born from fungi. 600 million years ago.." Paul Stamets===

What possible intelligent natural systems can we look to for inspiration and guidelines in the patterning of our human living environments, and for sketching out a kind of positive vision for the approaching Afterculture. How can we innovate more naturally? Assuming that humans are not the only intelligent organisms on this planet, I would try to look into "plant intelligence" in relation to resilient life after culture. Granted, there’s nothing new in assigning to the "mushroom" the role of multifunctional "World's healer", nor in trying to engage this intelligent organism in remediation of the culture and turn everything into magic mushroom, but still – when talking about collaborations, culture and life, we can’t overlook the lowly mycelium (the vegetative part of a fungus).

===Spawning the resilium===

In mycoforestry and mycogardening mycelium links all the elements of the system together. It unlocks nutrient sources stored in plants and other organisms, converts rocks and organic debris into food for other species, redistributes nutrients to wherever they are most needed, builds the soil and maintains ecosystem diversity. It does cardinal, life-enhancing work on a grassroots and in constant dialogue with its environment. Human intervention damages wild nature, artificial fertilizers cause mycelia to retreat and the soil to lose its vibrancy. But mycelial networks are resilient. They survive catastrophes and able to re-grow. They remediate poisoned lands, decompose toxic wastes and radioactive pollutants. If the fungi can thrive even on gifts why not to engage them in remediation of a society poisoned by relentless abuse of power; in mycofiltration of a contemporary culture polluted by artificiality, commercialism, mercantillism, egoism, fetishism, conformism, biological racism bureaucracy, competition, kitsch, trends etc; as well as to control cultural populations aka "dead" objects, "fed" projects, curators, collectors, directors, managers, cultural animators and provocateurs, hm? 
In my opinion, one of the most significant problems with contemporary culture is that it tends to focus on the "objects" themselves, surface appearance and pragmatic formal constructs rather than on the relationships, how we treat each other. These relationships are what turn a collection of unrelated "objects" into a functioning system, whether it’s a garden, cultural community, or an ecosystem. It save resources, energy, labor and creates a whole.

What if we inoculate culture with a mycorrhizal "fungi" to generally enhance it's health? And then when the right conditions are created, a multifarious fruits will rise up to 'poison' the world with beauty, open minds, seed other mycelia, and grow into fresh territories.

When the mycelium exhausts the food sources in one area it expands outward in a circular fashion and the fungus cannibalizes the inner mycelium. It extracts whatever nutrients it can get from there and moves them to the outer, growing regions. Whatever cannot be recycled is shut off from the growing region and allowed to decay. May be it's time to cannibalize the inner of decaying culture, extract whatever nutrients left in it's inner and redistribute them according to the true needs?

By analogy with mycelia a "resilium" could be compared with a resilient organism which spreads out widely through time and space and popps up in the most unexpected places to spark joyful illuminations. It adsorbs complex reality upside down, digests it externally by relishing enzymes of curiosity, amazement, inventively, and non-discriminative knowledge and makes it available for other organisms to feast on. This method of enzyme releasing and providing food for the others is natural way of resilium's feeding. As soon as enough nutrients are collected in it's network fruiting bodies emerge – flotilla feasts, mountain bear missions, remote sensing flight operations, shroomshops, augmented harvests and many other unique happenings. These materialisations respond to prevailing conditions and circumstances, and can be repeated in various forms as other creatures from all walks of life can join in. The vaster the resilium, the more extravagant the “fruiting bodies” arise from the fertile undergrowth. When they die down, mycelium, the essential part of the organism, is still alive. And it is not a static object. It growths random in response to chemical signals of other members of the ecosystem.

===From mono to poly===

What layout or design of our environment could be called "nature-logical"? I assume that it is one that is "open" and links many possible organisms into one heterogeneous kingdom of useful relationships and mutually beneficial connections among microbes, fungi, plants, insects, birds, mammals, and all the other inhabitants of our world, including human species. Each individual organism has multiple roles and interconnected within the system, edges are optimised and resources reused. Problems, limitations and mistakes are embraced creatively, and the environment thrives. There is no need to impose connections from the outside. The design of this self-sustaining ecosystem differs from the formal, monocultural approach, where the parts are mostly disconnected from each other, serve just one single purpose, require a lot of labor and resources.

Learnin from those models and principals a human addiction to domination and the "mono" attitude should gradually give up in favor of rotations and symbiotic communities as in fact we are composites/large mosaics of microbes
and the disconnected part of one natural whole. What will happen to us?

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