Ramon Bril
25 | Haarlem, Netherlands | Life Sciences
His hobbies include Wushu and Tai Kwan Do, woodworking, photography, birds, playing Hang, living in nature, travelling, making electronics, japanese culture, growing plants (mainly orchids), growing fungi, northern French-style cooking for his 5 brothers, painting, writing English poetry. You can also find him working in the botanical gardens of Amsterdam and Leiden.
What can you expect from Ramon and the Myco team?
“I create bio-materials from the waste of the brewery.” Ramon likes to innovate in biological processes and has worked with other organic waste streams like used coffee grinds to grow mycelium before.
What challenges and excitements are anticipated with this project?
“Moulds!” They are aggressive pathogens to fungi and are very capable of reproducing through airborne spores.
Apart from the obvious cultivation of mycelium, Ramon also hopes to grow beautiful purple blewit mushrooms - “They are delicious to eat and a personal favourite.”
Why Mediamatic?
“I am not a good fit for the academic or the art world, but in combining the two, I feel at home.”
Ramon’s favourite beer
Belgian-style beers, like trappist beers and saisons, especially those with herbs.
Brendan Goodwin
21 | San Fransisco, California | Environmental Science
Brendan loves to hike and includes playing the drums and surfing among his hobbies. His studies are specifically related to food systems and he picked up an interest in mushrooms "somewhere along the way."
What is Brendan's experience with mushrooms?
He will be working on researching and developing new techniques of growing mycelium on brewery waste. He worked on developing a mushroom production system back at his university in Chicago, but not with the same substrate. "The brewery connection is new!"
Besides the cultivation of mycelium for insulation panels, Brendan hopes to grow "the tastiest mushrooms possible!"
Why Amsterdam?
Brendan is now completing part of his studies at the VU Amsterdam. "Compared with the US, Amsterdam is a much less mycophobic society."
Brendan's favourite beer
Lagunitas Pils, a Czech-style beer brewed in California
Claudia Schoetz
35 | Berlin, Germany | Multimedia Design, Fine art
Her hobbies include experimenting with food, especially with fermentation, exhibitions curation, and now mycelium-based insulation creation.
Why Mushrooms?
Claudia has never made made insulation from mycelium but she has grown mushrooms using more typical substrates than spent beer grains.
From foraging with her father to experimenting with the psilocybe strain, Claudia feels a real connection with the universe and mushrooms. She is also a big believer in "myco remediation" - the idea that mushrooms can clear oil spills and be grown on plastic and nuclear waste to eliminate them.
"Mycelium's networks are so intelligent and it is incredible that we just swallow this knowledge.”
What kind of mushrooms can we expect?
"I would love to grow and eat the mycelium." Claudia is also interested in pursuing making maps with mycelium in a speculative and artistic way - "Perhaps mycelium can replace the Delphic oracle!"
Why Mediamatic?
"Scientists and artists can work together in the same lab."
Claudia's favourite beer
Ego Bryghus, Norwegian beer - "It is a friend of mine who makes it."