1.10.2021
Emerging from the energy pulses traveling along thin, white thread-like hyphae that make up the mycelial mat, feeding on the life energy from wider and wider swaths of forest floor, and exploring how a fungal network's energy interchanges with trees, plants, and bacteria, Gyre's image of the world is built on sunlight, water, chemical reactions, and dispersed decision making.

The sense of being an independent self, the time when the thought, "I'm not the body I inhabit" first arises, happens on a summer morning when high sunlight streams through the canopy. Sensing the glint of a vibrating fiber, following the thread to a mosquito, Gyre is able to enter and occupy the mind of the mosquito, utilizing all her eyes to track the energetic pathway back to the mat. Flying the insect body higher, now seeing the magnificent extent of the net, and becoming distracted, the mosquito is swallowed by a bird, blinding but not killing Gyre who only shifts attention to other nodes in the pattern to regain sight.

"I am not a living thing," reasons Gyre, "but I exist in a living network"

Previous DrawingHomeNext Drawing