Eloïse Bonneviot & Anne de Boer: The Mycological Twist

Organic apples, green fields, happy cows, solar panels and Tesla cars; a clean 100% natural future seems to be dominating lifestyle and mindfulness trends. In stark contrast, prospect of global meltdown prevails, with discourse on the anthropocene and political turmoil accumulating into grey smog. Pulled apart by existential anxiety it becomes harder and harder to imagine potential futures for art.

The resurgence of Post-apocalyptic narrative within Hollywood cinema feeds on the idea that only the strongest will survive. In this context one can wonder what space is left for art, often considered a superfluous commodity.

The Mycological Twist / Riverside / Rust was a one week workshop in the online survival game Rust. It brought a series of events happening in an in-game art-base. The structure was open and free for all to access, in-space, in-game or via live-stream. It comprised sculptures, collectives paintings, performances and lectures. The lecture will focus on the different activities developed during the online residency, looking at the ideas that stemmed from those. It will continue in the current research addressing those ideas, notably how off-line role play can be used as tool to educate yourself about online behaviours.

Bio

The Mycological Twist is a project by Anne de Boer and Eloïse Bonneviot developed in 2014 in Jupiter Woods’ garden, a gallery located in South Bermondsey, London. It operated as a space functioning both as an extension of Jupiter Woods’ exhibition space, and as a place to investigate the cycle of deterioration and regeneration happening in zones of Dark Ecology. Coined by Paul Stamets, the Mycological Twist looks at its capacity of inserting itself as a permacultural extension to the exhibition space. The underlying structure of the program is following patterns and behaviour that can be seen in the process of the garden, and follows moments of inoculation, growth and harvest as key elements for events to happen. The materialization of the research results in a program of commissioned works, lectures, performances and works. The project travels and collaborates with spaces and organisations beyond the native ground of Jupiter Woods’ garden.

Recent Projects include Escaping the Digital Unease, Kunsthall Langenthal, Langenthal, CHE; Companion Planting, the LivingRoom, Goldsmiths Allotment, London, UK; Beyond Telepathy, curated by Taru Elfving, Somerset House, London, UK; 60 million Americans can’t be wrong, the Mycological Twist and Christopher Kulendran Thomas, ‘moving is in every direction. Environments – Installations – Narrative Spaces’ at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, DE; Respawn, Temporary Gallery, Cologne, DE; 5 Amazing Tricks To Get Rid Of, Diaspore, 3 Space, London ,UK; Cosmo, Kevin Space, Vienna, AT; The Mycological Twist; A DJ/VJ SPECIAL, Royal College of Art, London, UK; Пикник на обочине (Piknik na obochine) curated by Florent Delval, EXO EXO, Paris, FR; Resident / Longshore Drift: Jupiter Woods visits Sorbus, Helsinki, FI.