Rethinking Alive as Material is a workshop, during which the participants will get to know and work with seaweed Pyrocystis lunula, which is shining in the dark, also Chlorociboria aeruginascens mushroom, which is staining the wood with green colour, also cochineal insect Dactylopius coccus, which is used since Aztek times until now for red pigment extraction, also kombucha, which gains the qualities of paper or leather when dried, as well as Desmodium gyrans, the dancing plant that moves the leaves to music.
During these ongoing workshops each participant will receive a box with the objects mentioned above as well as cultivation and working instructions. The work will take place from mid-October to mid-December, online as well as offline, including meetings to discuss technical issues and to review how living organisms can be used as material, what connections we have among us, and what new properties we can train or discover within ourselves. At the end of the workshop a discussion with presentation of results is foreseen to take place at the Alt Lab laboratory.
The workshop will be led by Rūta Spelskytė. Spelskytė graduated from Vilnius Academy of Arts, she participated in various residencies in Germany, Paris, Spain and Sweden. The main areas of Spelskytė's research could be considered miscommunications, mistakes of dialogues between people and connections between science and the world of extro-science fiction, non-graspable with existing instruments and ways of thinking. She works with rare samples, light and pigment emissions, imagining the alchemy of the future, plants, animals, and traits that can be cultivated or discovered.
The project was presented at this year's Ars Electronica festival as a set of Rethinking Alive as Material tools in the Experiencing Lives”collection: https://www.facebook.com/sodas2123/photos/pcb.347089119994042/347091493327138
