Alumni Russell Ladson (2022) was awarded the Tisch Creative Research grant for his project “This Ain’t About Resiliency. This Is About Regeneration.” Ladson is an artist and researcher based in Oakland, CA. His work uses modes of computation to investigate the relationships and possibilities between the living matter and the more-than-human world that explore space, time, and memory.
His most recent project, Myco-Interfaces: Exploring Sensor Technologies in Mycelial Networks, examines how mycelium, the root system for fungi, can be used as a material and agent in designing novel, speculative biological interfaces in human-computer interaction. The project is currently being prepared for journal publication. His research interests are broadly in organic interfaces, science and technology studies, and computational media.
His Tisch Creative Research grant will fund research and experimentation on the aesthetics and politics of fungal displacement and dislocation to non-earth locations. The project, entitled “This Ain’t About Resiliency. This Is About Regeneration.” (formerly “Fungal Memories”) seeks to explore the following questions:
How might fungal memories and other living matter be carried into non-Earth locations?
In the transportation of fungi to non-Earth locations, how might fungal memories engage in/with colonial, anti-colonial, postcolonial discourse?
How does the displacement of fungi to non-Earth locations inscribe the colonial imagery into these new lands?