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Gentle Disco: Dancing on Mycelium

Shoes off, socks on, dance away!

23 Jun 2023

Another fresh batch of mycelium has arrived, which means... A new Gentle Disco! On Friday, the dance floor will be laid out, the DJ will play their favourite tunes and drinks will be served. So put on a pair of our white socks and gently dance towards the beer! Craft a beak, grab a sign and dance to help us build pigeon towers!

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Open air gentle disco 17.09 - This photo is part of Gentle Disco . Eszter Jámbor

Pigeon Towers

Every few weeks, a new pigeon tower emerges at the Mediamatic Biotoop. These structures are an ongoing experiment to build with living mycelium waste from oyster mushroom farms. The project investigates questions such as: Can we build structures to house feral pigeons? What is the best design to build a tower with mycelium? And how long does it take for the bricks to grow together? Through experimenting with different shapes, and building structures, we see how the material responds, and if we can build a comfy living space for our Amsterdam pigeons. 

Arne Hendriks

Arne Hendriks is guiding the pigeon tower project. He is an artist and researcher on human ecology, who explores the borders of specific cultural values that define our relationship with the planet. His projects include The Incredible Shrinking Man, that questions if it's possible to downsize the human species to better fit the earth and Fatberg, the building of an island made of fat. As a regular Mediamatic collaborator, he directed several projects to draw attention to our (sometimes twisted) relation with the planet and its resources, like Kool Abundance, The Starvation Experiment, and the building of a holy pigeon tower out of recycled newspapers.

Sign up

The Gentle Disco is free, just pass by!
In case you have any questions, you can send an email to program@mediamatic.nl.

 

Living Tower Talk

After the Gentle Disco you are warmly invited to join the Living Tower Talk : 100 Years of Learning Masterclass with Arne Hendriks, Clemens Driessen (Wageningen University) and Debra Solomon to talk about interspecies activity and the moral and political implications of pigeon-mycelium entities.