{"id":474,"date":"2020-07-21T09:59:21","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T08:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/?p=474"},"modified":"2020-07-21T10:53:33","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T09:53:33","slug":"soil-fungi-and-chthonic-communication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/2020\/07\/21\/soil-fungi-and-chthonic-communication\/","title":{"rendered":"Soil, Fungi and Chthonic Communication"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Humans aren’t the only ones who send messages. In his third guest blog, visual artist Shane Finan talks how nature sends messages underground.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
In a spoonful of soil you can find up to 100m of threads of fungal hyphae, as well as thousands of living organisms.\nPhoto credit: Shane Finan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As I approach a residency that looks at\nnetworks in the forest, I have been investigating the soil and how messages are\npassed below the ground. Regardless of any other area of investigation on this project,\nsoil provides the link that makes all other things possible. The idea of place\nis tied to the structure of soil \u2013 the demarcation of one place from another\nnot by borders but by identity is how people perceive \u2018place\u2019. The earth under\nour feet is the connector that allows us to create place (although advanced\nsailors like Tupaia, who sailed with Captain Cook in the 1700s and purportedly\ncould always point to his home island in any weather without aid of map or\ncompass, may disagree).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The word \u2018chthonic\u2019 is defined as\n\u2018subterranean\u2019 or, in mythology, \u2018of or relating to the underworld\u2019. This word\nprovides a strong basis for a historically enabled artwork that encompasses the\nunderworld as a story-telling device and as a medium of transfer of ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We often think of soil as a limiter, as the\nsoil of one\u2019s nation creating borders between places, or as a solid in an\notherwise non-solid space. But soil is also a source, and a transmitter. Plants\ngrow from the nutrients provided by soil. The roots of trees connect into the\nfungal bodies via threads of mycelium that weave through the soil. In a\nteaspoon of healthy soil there are as many microorganisms as there are humans\nliving on the African continent (Nature, 2011). In the same space, there can be between 10 and 100 metres of\nmycelium curled around the miniature rocks and dust (Bragg, Boddy, Gurr, & Johnson, 2018).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Fungi and trees communicate at the level of roots, passing messages below the soil.\nPhoto credit: Shane Finan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fungi and plants often work together,\nforming the \u2018Wood-Wide Web\u2019. Although there are common partnerships, many\nmycorrhizal (green plant and fungus) networks are led by chance, where fungi\nfind themselves next to unfamiliar trees. The history of mycorrhizal networks\nis as much as 420 million years old, among the oldest living relationships we\nknow of (Remy, Taylor, Hass, & Kerp, 1994). In these partnerships, fungi and trees exchange water, nutrients,\nand messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Healthy soil is needed for the woods, and\nthe Wood-Wide Web, to grow. The soil becomes a transmitter, providing\nnutrients, passageway for insects and other small creatures, and growing space\nfor roots and fungi. Soil, as a transmitter, allows the movement of animals,\nwater and roots, but also allows the transfer of parasites, chemicals, and\nother invaders from neighbouring areas. The fungi that find the most\ncomfortable, collaborative environment can thrive and grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The underground ignores human demarcations\nand borders just as the overground does \u2013 roots do not know where one field\nends and another begins. The delicate ownership of soil, and the ability to\ngrow, is important and has been highlighted in recent years by artists, farmers\nand activists. Fungicides kill the helpful fungi as well as the harmful ones;\npesticides kill pollinators as well as pests; chemicals sprayed in one area can\naffect neighbouring places unintentionally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As with fungal networks, human\ninfrastructural networks (water, electricity, internet) also creep through the\nsoil, sometimes, unfortunately, coming into competition with tree roots or\nmycelia. These are usually controlled by states or companies and maintained\nlocally by individuals or teams employed by these larger bodies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Forests and human networks both pass messages underground.\nPhoto credit: Shane Finan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cables for telephone, internet or electricity\nstream through the landscape both over and underground. These structures create\nabstract networks of interconnectivity that follow less ordered patterns than\nin planned urban areas, flowing with the landscape around streams or forests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The potential for ad-hoc networks to\nprovide an unstructured system of communication is one that has been explored\nby technologists and artists as a way to ensure community control over network\ninfrastructures (O\u2019Dwyer, 2020). In places as diverse as Zambia and Thailand, rural ad-hoc networks\nthat transmit short-range signals that bounce data from one home to another are\nestablished in villages by local residents (Johnson, Belding, Almeroth, & van Stam, 2010;\nLertsinsrubtavee et al., 2015). These locally coordinated networks decentralise the ownership of\nthe internet infrastructure and place it in the hands of those using the\nconnectors. Decentralised networks are arguably stronger, less open to\ncorruption, and can be self-regulated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transmissions happen underfoot all the time. They pass through the soil that seems so solid underfoot. Soil has to be imagined not as a solid, but as a transmitter, and my artworks are looking at soil as a transmitter, a point of movement of messages, nutrients, and life. It is only through this understanding that the chthonic can really be understood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bragg, M., Boddy, L., Gurr, S., & Johnson, D. (Bragg, M., Boddy, L., Gurr, S., & Johnson, D.). V. Brignell (Producer). (2018, 15\/02\/2018). In Our Time<\/em> [Podcast]. Retrieved from https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/b09r3nwl<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson, D. L., Belding, E. M., Almeroth,\nK., & van Stam, G. (2010). Internet\nusage and performance analysis of a rural wireless network in Macha, Zambia.<\/em>\nPaper presented at the Proceedings of the 4th ACM Workshop on Networked Systems\nfor Developing Regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lertsinsrubtavee, A., Wang, L.,\nSathiaseelan, A., Crowcroft, J., Weshsuwannarugs, N., Tunpan, A., &\nKanchanasut, K. (2015). Understanding\ninternet usage and network locality in a rural community wireless mesh network.<\/em>\nPaper presented at the Proceedings of the Asian Internet Engineering\nConference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nature. (2011). Microbiology by numbers. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 9<\/em>(9),\n628-628. doi:10.1038\/nrmicro2644<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Dwyer, R. (2020). Another Net is\nPossible. In K. a. L. Gansing, Inga (Ed.), The\nEternal Network: The Ends and Becomings of Network Culture<\/em> (pp. 68-80).\nAmsterdam and Berlin: Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, and\ntransmediale e.V., Berlin, 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remy, W., Taylor, T. N., Hass, H., &\nKerp, H. (1994). Four hundred-million-year-old vesicular arbuscular\nmycorrhizae. Proceedings of the National\nAcademy of Sciences, 91<\/em>(25), 11841-11843. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Humans aren’t the only ones who send messages. In his third guest blog, visual artist Shane Finan talks how nature sends messages underground. As I approach a residency that looks at networks in the forest, I have been investigating the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7447,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7447"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":482,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions\/482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}