Is it a mushroom farm? Is it a tower? Is it fertile soil? Is it a corn field? Is it a pigeon tower?
By Arne Hendriks
The mycelium pigeon tower is a constant process of one state moving into the next. After the mushroom harvest, the old mycelium bricks are used to build a tower, a tower aspiring to become soil, the soil bringing forth the corn, the corn eaten by resident pigeons that fertilize the soil with their droppings while corn foliage is turned into blocks of mycelium substrate to once again grow mushrooms.
In the autumn of 2020, we started experimenting with different shapes and methods to build this living cycle, and investigate material decomposition as part of the design process. Different towers will emerge at the Mediamatic Biotoop. You are invited to build with us and to discuss the process with Arne Hendriks at one of his lectures.
The Pigeon Tower entangles myriad temporalities and spatialities and divers intra-active entities-in-assemblages.
More-than-human, other-than-human, inhuman and human-as-humus.
Feral city pigeons have a bad reputation but that says more about us humans than it says about the pigeon. It's also a relatively recent perception. Throughout history, pigeons have always been highly valued, both for their incredible skills to find their way home, as well as for their meat and the…
What you call it probably depends on when you encounter it. On first glance IT could be a pile of mycelium bricks, tower-shaped, IT could be a pile of soil, a patch of corn, a pigeon cott, or even a somewhat otherworldly mushroom farm. And you’d always be correct because in its various incarnations…
How does it feel to be a pigeon?
Of course, nobody can ever tell, and probably even each pigeon on its own feels different about it. But to support the feeling to be part of the pigeon community I created a face-filter. With it you can experience how it would feel if you would have a -to be honest…
What is the most efficient way to come close to a circle but still use not too many mycelium blocks? After some testing we found out an octagonal shape for the tower would fit the most for our purpose.
