Mycelium Natural Intelligence – AI Performance

I ntellligence has long been considered “what sets us apart from other living beings.” For some scientists, intelligence is the product of an organ: the brain. This ethnocentric conception places humans at the center and excludes 86% of all living things. But what if we thought of intelligence as a distributed process instead? A layered activity that doesn’t rely on a specific organ but is instead a set of organic strategies designed to solve problems?

There are 2.5 million species of fungi in the world, but we know only 155,000 of them. This illustrates how little we understand about this form of life. Fungi exhibit remarkable adaptive capacities, employing complex strategies to optimize their networks for nourishment and communication.

Mycelium can be seen as an example of plant intelligence that has withstood geological epochs during the evolution of planet Earth. A dynamic and interconnected system, in which each element both influences and is influenced by the others. It serves as a metaphor for exploring the concepts of connection, networks, and distributed intelligence—an example to inspire the development of other intelligences and artificial communication systems. It is a point of reference that is literally right before our eyes.

With this performance, we aim to explore new forms of intelligence, whether artificial or natural, animal or plant, synthesizing them into a unified vision. The possibilities are vast, and the computational power we have at our disposal allows us to express ourselves through systems of great complexity. We are constantly dazzled by the seductive shimmer of New Artificial Intelligence, but what we propose is a fresh approach: we just need to look a little lower.

The performance creates a visual landscape in constant flux, inspired by the organic complexity of mycelium. A flow of imagery and sound is generated in real time by an AI queried on the topic, producing responses with a powerful visual impact.

Mycelium is an artistic project that the Studio is exploring through various creative approaches, including this light installation