Mycelium-based materials at the dawn of the Anthropocene

This paper presents the first results of a method for the fabrication of biologically augmented materials by engaging with the unique properties of complex non-linear fungal systems. We in- vestigate the practical requirements to produce mycelium-based materials as a case-study of closed-loop materiality, focused on the importance of its terrestrial attachment. Indeed, modernity leaves us with devasted landscapes of depleted resources, waste landfill, queries, oil platforms. At the time of the Anthropocene, the various effects the human role has on the constitution of the soils create an acceleration of material entropy. It is the terrestrial entanglement of fungal mate- rials that we investigate by offering an alternative fabrication paradigm based on the growth of resources rather than on extraction. Unlike the latter, biologically augmented materials can grow in abundance with little energy by combining micro-organisms such as fungal mycelium with natural fibres rich in cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin.

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