bio·​phil·​ic ˌbī-ō-ˈfi-lik. : of, relating to, or characterized by biophilia : relating to, showing, or being the human tendency to interact or be closely associated with other forms of life in nature.

Biophilic Experiences - Physarum Polycephalum

This project was produced alongside Adnan Aga for the NYU ITP Biophilic Experiences class. The aim of the class was to get students to better understand ways to integrate living, non-human creatures into their design, experiences, and projects going forward. Adnan and I decided to work with Physarum Polycephalum, also known as “slime mold”. Slime Mold has been the subject of much research as it exhibits a form of intelligence in its resource gathering. It has also been the subject of several artistic works, which we drew inspiration from.

The idea started from us choosing the non-human subject to work with. Once we had settled on Slime Mold, we went to work documenting the growth over time.

I ordered two petri-dishes of physarum from Carolina Biological supply, and set up my camera to capture a time lapse of the slime growing.

One plate quickly grew to many, with the slime mold being very resilient to transplantation.

These videos were captured over several days, and featured macro photos which were then added into a sequence to make a video. The time between photo captures was 30 minutes, so it’s easy to see how quickly the slime mold grows!

We noticed after watching the videos back how the mold seemed to be breathing as it grows, especially when sped up. We felt that, since the point of the class, was to help people connect with non-human species, that mirroring this breathing or pulsing with the pulse of a human would be an interesting way to draw a comparison for users.

We had the idea of placing the slime mold within a life-sized glass human head. I prepared the head by sterilizing it, and filling it up with Agar, the medium petri dishes mostly use. Unfortunately mold still took hold, and the head idea was discarded.

We designed an experience where the slime mold dishes would be placed in the center of a box, with a light coming through it. This light would be controlled by a heartbeat sensor, pulsing the light up and down relative to the user’s heartbeat. In the background would be a projector which would be playing the recorded video, and would speed up or slow down depending on the heartbeat of the participant. There would also be an audio component which would mimic what we thought slime mold sounded like as it grew, also controlled by the heartbeat sensor.

We felt that the experience was really enjoyable, and hopefully allowed some people to connect with another species that they otherwise might not have encountered. The head made a showing as well!

What is a Human to a Gnat?

“What is a Human to a Gnat?” is a short VR film from the perspective of a mold gnat. Mold gnats are bugs often found in indoor houseplants that live under the soil, with their offspring feeding on new roots. While they are not dangerous or particularly harmful to plants, they are considered a pest, and are often targeted for erradication with various pesticides like diatomaceous earth.

This project was made to challenge the view that all bugs are pests, or at least allow viewers to better understand the perspective of a bug when dealing with intrusive pests.

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