“Ritual device for fungal humus culture” will be presented at the Theme Exhibition “PANIC: Complex. Absurd. Ominous”, curated by Manuela Naveau, within the Ars Electronica Festival 2025 in Linz (Austria).

The exhibition addresses the political, technological, and ecological forces that generate collective fear and disorientation, while also inviting us to rethink panic as a space for reflection and transformation. Within this framework, the projects developed through the Tilling Roots and Seeds program engage with biodiversity, interspecies relations, and speculative approaches to sustainable futures.

An art project developed during the Tilling Roots and Seeds residency. It consists of a device for cultivating and biosonifying saprophytic fungi, envisioning future systems of biodiversity and sustainable food production.

︎︎︎ Theme Exhibition: “PANIC: Complex. Absurd. Ominous”
︎︎︎ When: September 3–7, 2025
︎︎︎ Where: POSTCITY, Bunker | Linz (Austria)
︎︎︎ Curated by: Manuela Naveau

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This art-based research asks what it means to care for soil today, and how that care can shape the way we grow, eat, and coexist with other forms of life. In this context, fungi emerge as key indicators of biodiversity, revealing the essential role of interspecies collaboration in sustaining nutrient cycling and ecological processes.

The installation presents the audience with a garden-synthesizer sound device designed for the cultivation and biosonification of saprophytic fungi. This interactive environment transforms fungal growth into a responsive soundscape. The audience's presence is detected through sensors in the soil, converting their gestures into music—shaped and modulated by the fungi's own electrical activity– and creating a state of synaptic and performative empathy with their surroundings.

Here, soil is no longer a passive surface, but a living, responsive partner—one that invites us to listen, interact, and recognize ourselves as part of a shared ecological network.

MORE ︎ HERE

︎︎︎ Concept and Art Direction: Santiago Morilla.
︎︎︎ Created within the residency program of the Tilling Roots and Seeds project, developed in collaboration with Ferrer Sustainability, Tectum Garden, Món Sant Benet – Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera, and Fundación Contorno Urbano.
︎︎︎ With the support of Quo Artis Foundation, the Dept. of Culture of the Government of Catalonia, and the Barcelona City Council.
︎︎︎ Physical Computing, Interactive Design and Software Development: Joaku de Sotavento & Fernando Fernández.
︎︎︎ Music, Field Recordings and Soundscape Design: Santiago Morilla and Joaku de Sotavento (with the special vocal collaboration of Coco Moya).
︎︎︎ Hardware Design and Construction: Santiago Morilla, Olly Needham and Nicholas Burridge.
︎︎︎ Fungi Suppliers (collaborators): Fungi Natur (Santolaya de Cabranes).
︎︎︎ Academic support: Research group arte-conocimiento.com, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.  

︎ 03-08/Sept./25