CONVERSATION IN HYPHE
"FOREST" EXHIBITION, THE GLACIERES OF THE SUBURBAN - G5 - BORDEAUX
April June 2019
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The time has come for us disoriented humans, inhabitants of a sclerotic and quite foggy world to look differently at the world around us, to listen more attentively to the murmur of nature and to go guided by its lament "to walk in the sea. forest ”in the words of Janine M.Benyus.
This other society in its own right, denied, misunderstood or ignored, turns out to be fundamental and promising for all. To experience the undergrowth, to observe under the wood to better understand life and make visible the invisible, this other hyperconnected territory where everything makes sense, such is the common thread of this project.
In this device, I do not give a too subjective and sensitive vision of the forest in order to avoid giving an account of a dreamed world, sublimated, enchanted, simple projection or simulacrum without real substance. Rather, I start from the Idea, being less concerned with the appearance of things than with their appearance, with what they intrinsically are. By showing nature's modus operandi, I create an environment conducive to experience. The visitor thus leaves in, and under the forest to penetrate into the other territory, to explore the invisible, internal and deep part of this secret world to better understand its functioning, and in doing so, to reconnect to the world and to itself. He experiences this forest universe which works not only by air but also and above all by underground, essential space most developed physically. Recent research proves that trees and other plants but also different living organisms such as fungi, insects or bacteria are connected to each other by a complex system whose transmission takes place by chemical or electrical means. The fungi actively participate in this network, according to the same principle as the fiber optic internet, by developing a filamentous system, called a hypha, which ensures continuity in the event of a break. A single mushroom can connect several forests. This activity called "WOOD WIDE WEB" represents a canvas imperceptible to the naked eye and elusive by its size.
The different structures or works linked to each other, by a physical or visual link, account for these meanders, these underground connections which make us apprehend the force of the cycle of life, of its entropic, unavoidable and immutable character.
They form a set which shows "impermanence" and the continuous transformation of everything, in this "fluid environment" conducive to an interaction between all living organisms whether they are on, or, underground. A smooth space, “Formal” according to Deleuze's definition without form, subject, or well-defined object, but populated by forces and flows. A moving universe, without anchoring or limit, made of substances, which according to Anne-Marie Mol, “flow, mix, transform, and sometimes solidify into more or less ephemeral forms which can dissolve or reform without provided that the continuity of the process is not interrupted. ". Each line is a flow and each living organism a tangle of lines. Interrupting the connection can be fatal because according to Tim Ingold life is not contained within the absolute limits of fixed forms, just as there is no absolute character of the limit between organism and environment.
To penetrate under the wood, it is here to contemplate the ceiling of the invisible and infinite world, to rise towards the vegetable kingdom as one contemplates the vault of an decorated grotto, or that of a Gothic cathedral with the celestial scenes pacifying or threatening. It is the start of a multiple connection conducive to a hybrid communication which takes account of a complex ecosystem where three universes meet the animal, the plant and the fungal kingdom. It is to understand that each protagonist participates in the life of the other through a very elaborate system of links and mutual aid. The forest has a lot to teach us from a societal and ecological point of view. Everything works in symbiosis and everything recycles there, a chain of possibilities which man would have every interest in observing very closely by adopting these operating modes.
This biomimetic artistic environment reveals this vast network where nothing is missing, where everything has its utility and its function. In these little-known bowels, there is no gratuitous sobriety, but “an artistic and architectural construction” according to Karl Blossfeldt, skilfully orchestrated which under exuberant and sometimes ornamental airs, produces only utilitarian forms but extremely accomplished artistically. The complexity, resulting from a primitive energy, obeys an internal, mobile, and very reactive logic.
Going into a forest environment or its artistic avatar, under the crown, or under the wood, in this "open" universe without contour or line separating the sky from the earth, without limit between the gaseous and the solid is to interact with it . Act today essential to understand what connects us to the world in which we live and to stop the systematic massacre perpetrated by industrial activities against nature.
Karinka Szabo-Detchart.