<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div>Hi All,<br><br></div>Lurking away on the fringes, on the lip-edge of human disturbances, to find this post. Thank you Ben for an amazing, and affirming post. <br><br></div>Yours in the Mycelium,<br></div>Mez<br>--<br></div><a href="http://mezbreezedesign.com">mezbreezedesign.com</a><br><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Nov 28, 2017 at 11:47 AM, Ben Kinsley <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:benjamin.kinsley@gmail.com" target="_blank">benjamin.kinsley@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<br><div dir="ltr">Hello all, <div><br></div><div>I've been following along with the past month's discussions, waiting for my chance to talk about mushrooms. If anyone knows me personally, this won't come as much of a surprise... I'm always finding ways to lead conversations towards fungi ;) I've become quite obsessed with the mushroom world over the past few years. This all began in upstate NY, in the Adirondacks, where my wife and I go each summer. In the Adirondacks, there's a tradition to collect an "Artist Conk" fungus (Ganoderma applanatum) on hikes, and make a commemorative etching onto its surface, writing the date, place, names of participants, sometimes drawings of memorable sights, and put these on a shelf in your cabin. Our neighbor has a whole wall full of these, and we discovered 2 in our cabin dating from 1935 and 1937. So we began taking up this folk tradition, and quite quickly began to encounter so many different kinds of mushrooms in the forests. In our need to know more about how to accurately identify "Artist conks" (look-alike species don't hold a etching permanently like Ganoderma applanatum), we joined the New York Mycological Society in NYC where we lived from 2013-2017. As it turns out, the New York Mycological Society was co-founded by John Cage, who was an avid mushroom hunter and renowned mycologist in his own right. In fact, he was perhaps as experimental in his approach to mycology as he was with his music, and we know of a few more choice edible species due to his (sometimes nearly deadly) experiments with mycophagy (the practice of eating fungi -especially mushrooms collected in the wild). Cage once explained his dual-obsessions by pointing out that "music" is next to "mushroom" in most dictionaries, however after spending most of my free time since 2013 foraging for mushrooms, I understand the kinship between his interest in silence and mushrooms -- both require deep and slow observation, and you begin to notice so many things that were once hidden in plain sight. In fact, the first time we went foraging with the NYMS, I couldn't find a thing. Then, after adjusting to the process of looking, mushrooms were all around me! We came home from Central Park with a basket full of wild edibles, and cooked a delicious brunch. From this point onward I was hooked.</div><div><br></div><div>I bring up mushrooms for a few reasons:</div><div><br></div><div>Perhaps foremost, is the relatively new knowledge we have about the mycoremediation possibilities with a variety of fungi. Oyster mushrooms, for instance, have been proven to be able to clean up oil spills (as well as retain their nutritional edibility!).</div><div> <a href="http://www.fungi.com/blog/items/the-petroleum-problem.html" target="_blank">http://www.fungi.com/blog/ite<wbr>ms/the-petroleum-problem.html</a></div><div><br></div><div>Certain mushrooms are considered to be hyper-accumulators of heavy metals. These mushrooms should not be eaten, but can be collected, thus picking the heavy metals from the soil of radioactive sites.</div><div><a href="https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/using-fungi-remediate-radiation-fukushima" target="_blank">https://www.permaculture.co.uk<wbr>/articles/using-fungi-remediat<wbr>e-radiation-fukushima</a></div><div><br></div><div>Certain species of mushrooms are highly medicinal. Turkey Tail, Enoki, Maitake, Reishi, and Chaga have proven anti-caner and immune-enhancing effects. Shitake has antiviral and cholesterol-reducing effects. Lion's Mane is believed to stimulate nerve growth. Cordyceps are known to improve respiratory health and increase oxygen uptake, among other properties (It has been recommended to me to take cordyceps to help with elevation sickness, as I adjust to the Colorado elevation). There is also active research being done with Bird's Nest fungi and its possible effects to fight pancreatic cancer.</div><div><a href="https://www.drweil.com/diet-nutrition/nutrition/mushrooms-for-good-health/" target="_blank">https://www.drweil.com/diet-nu<wbr>trition/nutrition/mushrooms-fo<wbr>r-good-health/</a></div><div><br></div><div>There is research being done (again) with psilocybin being administered to terminal-cancer patients in an effort to relieve anxiety and "existential distress."</div><div><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/trip-treatment" target="_blank">https://www.newyorker.com/maga<wbr>zine/2015/02/09/trip-treatment</a><br></div><div><br></div><div>Newly published research on cordycepts have shown that when they infect an ant, the fungus actually infiltrates and surrounds muscle fibers throughout the ant’s body, and takes over all functions <u>except for</u> the brain - essentially puppeteering the ant! (It was previously thought that the fungus took over the brain).</div><div><a href="https://gizmodo.com/the-fungus-that-turns-ants-into-zombies-is-more-diaboli-1820301538" target="_blank">https://gizmodo.com/the-<wbr>fungus-that-turns-ants-into-<wbr>zombies-is-more-diaboli-<wbr>1820301538</a></div><div><br></div><div>Paul Stamets is a leading mycologist, and you can learn a bit more about all of this here:</div><div><a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world" target="_blank">https://www.ted.com/talks/paul<wbr>_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_<wbr>can_save_the_world</a><br></div><div><a href="https://soundcloud.com/publicprograms/paul-stamets" target="_blank">https://soundcloud.com/<wbr>publicprograms/paul-stamets</a><br></div><div>(and if you can deal with Joe Rogan): <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.<wbr>com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ</a></div><div><br></div><div>I've been thinking a lot about how much of this knowledge is ancient - embedded in folklore, traditional medicine, and in the culinary customs of so many cultures. Ötzi, the 5000 year old Ice Man, was found carrying two mushrooms - the Birch Polypore (which has antibiotic and styptic properties) and a Tinder Conk (which was used as tinder and as a way to transport fire, through smoldering embers). It seems that in the United States, we have inherited a mycophobia (perhaps from the British?). Whereas, the traditions of foraging, and using wild mushrooms for food and medicine is much more alive in places like China, Japan, Russia, and eastern Europe. However, the world of mushrooms is complex, and mycological knowledge from North America does not necessarily translate to another continent. Some of my favorite fall edible mushrooms (on the east coast) are Brick Tops (Hypholoma sublateritium), but when I was living in Germany recently, I learned that this same species is considered to be poisonous in Europe. </div><div><br></div><div>I had another fascinating experience recently. While foraging in the Adirondacks in the spring with our Finnish friend, we came across a nice patch of perfect False Morels (Gyromitra esculenta). From the experts in the mycological society, we know them to be deadly poisonous. From growing up in Finland, our friend knows them to be the choicest of all edible mushrooms (if prepared correctly by par-boiling them in an open-air kitchen for a long time, and discarding the water before cooking). We had a bit of a disagreement, and did a lot of research, and decided (perhaps against our better judgement) to cook them, following the Finnish FDA guidelines. We did so, and had one of the most delicious meals I can remember! However, this was a bit of a risk, as we don't fully know if this species is identical to the species that is eaten in Finland (it is one of the few countries where it is legal to sell these mushrooms on the market), or if the toxicity levels are different based on continent, elevation, etc. It is also said that the toxins build up in your system over time, and if you eat too many of these, too often, it can kill you. Friends from Finland and Latvia know, from tradition, how to cook these mushrooms, and also that you should not eat them very often. In fact, many times, while foraging with the New York Mycological Society, amateurs visiting from other countries were able to teach us, and our expert mycologist leaders, something new about the edibility, use, or medicinal value of a certain mushroom species.</div><div><br></div><div>This brings me to another observation: While fungi is an entirely separate kingdom from plants, mycology is a relatively young, and often ignored science. Most universities do not have mycology departments, and many biology departments do not offer a single mycology class. It is estimated that there are around 5 million species of fungi on the planet (estimated to outnumber plants by at least 6 to 1), yet only 75,000 species have been scientifically identified. Fairly recently, it has been discovered that 30% of healthy soil is fungal mass, and live mycelium cultures have been found growing under the ocean floor. <b>There's so much we don't know!</b></div><div><br></div><div>This reminds me of a text I read in the book <i>A Year With Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno’s Diary</i>. On page 357 Eno published a letter he wrote to Tom Sutcliffe (in response to a text Sutcliffe wrote in response to Eno's controversial "Turner Prize" speech from 1995). The portion of interest to me is this:</div><br>"[...Morse Peckham's...] theory is that art exists to rehearse us in various forms of cognitive uncertainty. He sees ‘science’ in its most general sense in the same way as you described it - as an attempt to make the world more comprehensible, to be able to make better generalizations and predictions about things. He says that we are good at this, but it has a price: we become overcertain of our generalizations and simply ignore the times when they don’t apply. We lust for certainty so much that we ignore that which reminds us how uncertain we are. He suggests that this is what art is for: to confront us with mysteries, things that we don’t properly understand, we know we don’t understand, but we nonetheless find ourselves excited and stimulated by. This linkage of uncertainty with pleasure is the key to his theory - a way of training ourselves to enjoy exploring, to act without complete information, to improvise."<div><br></div><div>I think this is very much akin to the way Cage was thinking about mushrooms, as well as how Anna Tsing frames her observations about Matsutake mushrooms in her great book "The Mushroom at the End of the World On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins." In it, she talks a lot about the Matsutake growing solely in places of human disturbance... and that once rural Japanese villages were abandoned for city life, the coveted Matsutake mushrooms disappeared. It is often talked about, in mushroom clubs, how most of the good mushrooms are found along the trails, near human disturbance (and not in the middle of the forest). </div><div><br></div><div>I think this is incredibly ripe territory for creative exploration. How might we use mushrooms as material and also as metaphor? Perhaps all the information we need in order to de-contaminate ourselves and our planet is already embedded within our folk knowledge? I plan to explore these ideas, especially in collaboration with mushrooms, in future projects. I'm not exactly sure how that's going to take form, however I have done a couple of things recently:</div><div><br></div><div>Here's a essay I wrote on the relationship between art and mushrooms: </div><div><a href="http://temporaryartreview.com/zen-of-the-woods-a-foray-into-art-and-mushrooming/" target="_blank">http://temporaryartreview.com/<wbr>zen-of-the-woods-a-foray-into-<wbr>art-and-mushrooming/</a></div><div><br></div><div>and here's a project I did, in collaboration with Christopher Kennedy (also a member of the Environmental Performance Agency), which took the form of a guided walk/meditation/wander through Central Park in search of fungi, stories, and sound:</div><div><a href="http://benkinsley.com/myco-ramblings/" target="_blank">http://benkinsley.com/myco-<wbr>ramblings/</a></div><div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div>-- </div><div>Ben Kinsley</div><div>Assistant Professor of New Media/Time-Based Art</div><div>Department of Visual and Performing Arts</div><div>University of Colorado Colorado Springs</div><div><br><div class="m_-6942228491971220200gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><a href="http://www.benkinsley.com/" target="_blank">www.benkinsley.com</a><br></div><div><a href="http://www.janksarchive.org/" target="_blank">www.janksarchive.org</a></div></div></div></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Nov 27, 2017 at 2:19 PM, Renate Terese Ferro <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:rferro@cornell.edu" target="_blank">rferro@cornell.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<br>
And one more guest for Week 4<br>
Ben Kinsley’s projects have ranged from choreographing a neighborhood intervention into Google Street View, directing surprise theatrical performances inside the homes of strangers, organizing a paranormal concert series, staging a royal protest, investigating feline utopia, collecting insult humor from around the world, and planting a buried treasure in the streets of Mexico City (yet to be found). His work has been exhibited internationally at venues such as: Queens Museum, NYC; Cleveland Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Cleveland; Bureau for Open Culture; Mattress Factory Museum, Pittsburgh; Flux Space, Philadelphia; Katonah Museum of Art, NY; Green on Red Gallery, Dublin; Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina, Florence; La Galería de Comercio, Mexico City; Catalyst Arts, Belfast; and ZKM Museum of Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe. He has participated in a number of artist residency programs including: Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture; Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts; Skaftfell Art Center, Iceland; Askeaton Contemporary Arts, Ireland; and Platform, Finland.<br>
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Ben is an avid mushroom hunter, an amateur mycologist, and has published essays on mushrooms and art on Temporary Art Review and in the New York Mycological Society newsletter. He is an Assistant Professor of New Media/Time-Based Art at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.<br>
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<br>
Renate Ferro<br>
Visiting Associate Professor<br>
Director of Undergraduate Studies<br>
Department of Art<br>
Tjaden Hall 306<br>
<a href="mailto:rferro@cornell.edu" target="_blank">rferro@cornell.edu</a><br>
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