Midnight Mushroom Music

Yesterday I met beekeeper Elín Siggeirsdóttír, walked through the forest on her land, met her ducks & chickens! Her bees make incredibly yummy buttery honey. I set Petri dishes out by the hives (wild yeast!), collected a dead bee & was shown good vs poorly designed (though architecturally stunning!) hive sections. Spent the entire afternoon talking about bees & the environment. Elín allowed me to set an Aquarian audio contact mic and bio-sonification module onto the hives to record the bees. The bees are busily preparing for winter. There was a lot of work taking place within the hives. Strange sounds as well as the expected humming. Wish the bees luck over winter!

Back in Iceland harvesting wild yeast(s) towards a process known as Obvara*. Some of the plants, lichen, mushrooms I find towards capturing yeast is also (of course!) hooked up with electrodes and their bio-data is translated to midi. This evening I was working with wild clover. This clover is dying as winter storms have been raging off and on over here, but this particular flower had a lot of life left in it! Thanks for tuning in to Midnight Mushroom Music! xo

*The obvara firing process, which originated in Eastern Europe around the 12th Century, involves scalding the finish on the pottery to seal the porous surface. Similar to the raku pottery process, a bisqued pot is heated, in this case to 1650°F (899°C) and removed from the heat. The difference is that the pot is then dipped into a specific Obvara yeast mixture before being dunked in water to rapidly cool the piece. The effects are quite stunning. Often results yield dendritic/lichen-like patterns!

Chaos Fungorum is a journey into the Terrestrial solar system. Mycelium hooked up with electrodes feeding biodata through a Bio Sonification Module to midi. Midi sent through a NoCoast, 3 Mother32s, a Minitaur, a DFAM and Subharmonicon.

From the multiverse into the Oort cloud, through dark matter. Branching out, we breath it in.

Enjoy.

If you are in Toronto September 29th, please visit the Baba Yaga Collective studio/gallery 906 Queen West @Crawford. 9:30pm - 2:30am for live Midnight Mushroom Music.

Rehearsing as much as possible with the Mycelium, with each other towards our September 29 performance. Here we have the Mycelium sending voltage out to 3 Mothers through a NoCoast into a Subharmonicon and Minitaur. Krell squared.

Sitting in the Mushroom Haus this morning, plating specimen. The Blue Oyster mushrooms are growing off the charts! I had to listen to them :)

For the past week, I've been working with Krell patches on a NoCoast. Bringing midi in from the Bio-Sonification module I first started by hooking my self up (via electrodes). This evening's Krell patch has midi coming in from a large block of Mycelium. Patching the Krell into a Korg SQ-1 and Werkstatt 01 I turned off all the lights and left the room.. allowing the Mycelium to do its thing. All of these September 'experimentations' are towards the performance taking place Saturday, September 29th during Nuit Blanche Toronto. https://www.facebook.com/events/1763778620414561/

Friend and colleague, Steve Storz inspired this particular Krell patch. I used the NoCoast brought into Ableton. No decay or reverb added until ....

Visit, http://www.stevestorz.com/web/

To see what Steve's up to! Art On!

Special Wednesday edition: Mycelium + Krell = are Mycelium the Krell in a form we can understand?

For our Nuit Blanche performance, taking place September 29th 9:30pmEST onward. At 906 Queen street West, Toronto. We will be using various versions of Krell along with the mycelium's electrical impulses coming into some Mothers. Stay tuned!

Growing over 100 pounds of Mycelium towards an installation taking place Nuit Blanche Toronto, September 29th, 2018 at 906 Queen Street West. This episode is uploading late due to Suzanne Ciani being in town holding a workshop at Moog Audio! I was there, front row in front of her Buchla. It was a very inspirational talk. Lot's to think about.

Earlier in the day, I was over at Guttman Laboratory autoclaving potential mycelium armatures. There are a lot of mushrooms blooming in Ontario. Thanks for tuning in! xo

Tonight I worked with the Pink oyster mushroom, Pleurotus djamor. I am currently growing over 100 pounds (possibly more) of Mycelium towards Nuit Blanche Toronto, 2018 taking place September 29th. Installation at 906 Queen Street West with the Bio.Chrome Collective September 26-Oct 7, 2018. More information posting soon! Thanks for tuning in :)