CRYPTOGAMS are organisms that reproduce without seeds or flowers, mosses, lichens, fungi, algae and ferns. They grow in the cracks, on surfaces, beneath notice. Ancient. Persistent. Hidden in plain sight. TECHNOLOGY operates similarly, it permiates the substructures of our cities, embedded in infrastructure, concealed in black boxes, naturalised into landscapes. Cables beneath pavement. Servers in warehouses. Computational substrate invisible until examined. Both are MATERIAL SYSTEMS with hidden processes. Both accumulte memory. Both create networks. The cryptogam and the circuit share a logic: distributed intelligence, environmental sensing, collective survival. Project outline: Cryptogamic Oracle is a 'techno-organic' divination system that reads the hidden materiality between natural and technological systems. Users capture two images: cryptogams (moss, lichen, fungi) found in urban environments, and nearby technology infrastructure.
Tag: moss worlds
Micro protest workshop
The Micro-Protest Workshop explores the power of gentle protest through small, situated acts of resistance. Participants use a process of ‘diffractive mapping’* to co-create protest signs and slogans that draw on perspectives from ecology, art, and activism. Rather than large-scale statements, these micro-signs give voice to overlooked or more-than-human worlds, transforming protest into an exercise in empathetic imagination. Drawing on Corbett’s idea of gentle protest (Corbett, 2017) and the Situationist practice of détournement (Debord & Wolman, 1956), the workshop uses humour, play, and re-appropriation to show how media objects, even modest ones can disrupt dominant narratives and open space for critical reflection.
We were by the tumbling stream.
Moss identification card deck
This card pack was developed for a moss walk for the Eco pedagogies Symposium 2024. The walk traced a route between the Firs Botanical Gardens and Manchester Museum. In this iteration of the moss workshop, I discussed my emerging "methodology of moss" and the role of art as a perception-changing device. To develop the card pack I photographed each species of moss I found along the route and created a card for each one, including information on the numerous biomes encountered. These cards not only aid my learning and memorisation of moss species but also include prompts, instructions, texts, and readings that will enable others to facilitate their own walking and moss workshops in the future.