Isobel Parker Philip expands mushroom mycelium metaphors in relation to Covid experiences of connection and disconnection, in her essay "Foraging along forking paths". https://togetherinart.org/foraging-along-forking-paths/
Fungi are 'inherently collaborative creatures' and 'world builders' ... They transform the environments in which they live.
It’s a rather generous form of habitation ... The thread-like filaments of a fungus’ root system, the hyphae, spread through the soil. It’s an infrastructure that carries both nutrients and information, sometimes helping an ecosystem respond to threats and filter out pollutants. This infrastructure behaves like an underground city.
Or the internet.
There’s something here.
Something in the relationship between the fungal networks that propagate and transform the natural world and the virtual networks we’re tethered to.
... We often think of mushrooms as independent organisms. They are found intact, as distinct ‘fruits’, when foraged. But beneath the surface, they’re enmeshed; their mycelium (their roots) spread far and wide. They spawn other specimens and create a dense web. Sitting all alone in front of our screens, aren’t we also individual organisms bound by invisible filaments? Aren’t we entangled in our own web? Metaphorical mushrooms, mainlining memes.
... This feels fungal. It’s a form of world-building. I spread myself across otherwise insurmountable physical distances by interacting with others. This is a collaborative ecology. The networked encounters we experience on the internet can be a form of sustenance. They are transformative; they sustain and shape us. We’re back to foraging, figuratively. Remember, it is the interaction between fungi and its ecosystem that determines what grows there (and how). The fungi changes the landscape and determines what survives there. So does the internet.
To think of social media as sustenance is not to say it’s good for you. Remember, not all mushrooms are okay to eat. We have to carefully identify the species – calculate the risk – before we consume it. Perhaps we should pay heed and follow the same due diligence when foraging for facts on the web?
Extracts from Isobel Parker Philip, "Foraging along forking paths", https://togetherinart.org/foraging-along-forking-paths/
%2BWhite%2C%2BBRANCH%2B3d.jpg)
.jpg)
