Simplicity and Replication

This piece, the
Wall Fungus,  is about energy, space, and
relationship. It directs our attention to the spaces between things, and
encourages us to hold these spaces as palpably alive and energetic.

The Wall Fungus
is a process, not a piece. It’s an improvisational score, a kind of playful
relationship. Somewhat like a cooperative game, it has a set of relational tendencies,
a guidebook for group creation. The Fungi want to swarm, and perversely, they
want to spin away from each other. They want to flood space with energy.

Installing this
piece, we played with the ways the Fungi connected to the beautiful elements of
Zendo’s venerable interior. Here two fungal twins made a space that enveloped a
pillar, softening it; here two distant Fungi enclosed a big volume of brick, almost
bending it, with a moment of red paint as punctuation.

There are
dozens more Fungi back in the studio. I had planned to install all of them,
believing that it would be interesting to overwhelm the walls with a creative
mold. As soon as we’d installed just four of the Fungi, it was obvious that to
create a dense cloud of them would have ignored the harmonies the Fungi were
creating. At that point, I understood: if I put plan before play, I would move
from fear, not from harmony, and the Fungi would become rot.

I hope that
this very simple piece grows on you. I hope that the harmonious intention of
the piece finds a foothold within those parts of you that are in the process of
positive change, the way fungi colonize parts of a forest that are returning to
soil..

The journey to
arrive at the installation of this piece was long. As is very often the case in
my creative practice, the path has not been straight. Along the way I made
promises about the show that I’ve not kept, and there’s much work I had planned
to show here that is–not. If you’re interested in the work I’d promised, such
as Coleoptera, or if you’re
interested in improvising with the remaining Fungi yourself, please contact me.
Come by the studio. Let’s talk.

Simplicity is
foolish–and it is the most needful thing. May it replicate itself everywhere.