mycelia

Nanotopia’s Midnight Mushroom Music, in collaboration with the Metaverse Crew, presents Live Reactive Fungi Frequencies and Interpretative Dance Performances featuring R00T and the particle dancers.

Connecting living mycelium* biodata into a VR experience, Nanotopia's bio-sonification modules translate micro fluctuations in conductivity into MIDI, enabling them to send fungi energy through their synthesizers, creating a multi-species musical entanglement. The connected mycelium reacts sonically and visually within the audio-reactive world, to the virtual and physical human presence in a fungi-feedback loop. R00T interprets the fungi frequencies inside the VR space through a full-body-tracked dance performance, while she directs a swarm of inhabited particle dancers through the VR world to interact, melt and fight with her, driven by the mycelium beats. Visitors into Mycelia are encouraged to explore, harvest Amanita, and go for a swim while listening to mushroom melodies and experiencing the dance.

*Mycelium is the vegetative part of a fungus or fungus-like bacterial colony

HOW TO ACCESS THE “MYCELIA” WORLD IN VRCHAT

You will need a VR ready PC and a compatible headset such as Oculus Rift/Rift S, Oculus Quest + link, HTC Vive/Pro/Pro 2/Cosmos, Valve Index or Windows Mixed Reality headset to access VRChat. Download VRChat on your PC and create an account. Once you’re inside VRChat in your headset, search for ‘Mycelia’ in the WORLDS tab or you can launch the world directly through your web browser. Experience the world with friends. This is a multi-player world for up to 60 players.

HOW TO PURCHASE A TICKET & ACCESS THE LIVE PERFORMANCES IN VRCHAT

The live musical and dance performance requires a ticket. There will be two performances during Raindance, taking place on 29th October and 21st November at 8pm GMT. You can purchase your ticket here. Once you’ve purchased your ticket, the creators will send you an email with access instructions.

ABOUT THE CREATORS

Nanotopia.net

Andrei Gravelle (They/them) and Tosca Terán (She/they) are interdisciplinary artists whose works are a confluence of art, ecology and craft; together, they envision Nanotopia. From the Midnight Mushroom Music archives, the Mycelium Martian Dome to fungi-controlled VR experiences, Nanotopia constructs soundscapes and installations involving biodata-sonification of fungi, drawing awareness to the destruction of our oceans, breathable air, and shared environment. How even the very act of observing a thing changes that thing forever. Their work has been featured at, The Harwood Museum, SOFA New York, The Design Exchange, MOCA Toronto, The Ontario Science Centre, Music Works, Vector Festival, Studio Art & Design Canada, SONICA21, Glasna Music, AMAZE. / Berlin, Venice VR Expanded, Ars Electronica and NAISA (New Adventures In Sound Art).

Sara Lisa Vogl

Sara is collaboratively constructing and exploring VR experiences since 2013. A background in communication arts & interactive media and in love with the idea of new worlds, Sara is on a mission to go beyond the status quo of what immersive virtual realities are and explore their diverse potentials for the future. Driven by the quest to create deep immersion in her experiences the Berlin based futurist is exploring new interaction concepts as well as experimental ways of storytelling. By creating immersive installations Sara is working with sensors, haptics and the intersection between algorithms and real worlds.

The Metaverse Crew (MVC)

We’re a diverse and supportive global community of artists, engineers, game makers, programmers, creatives, performers and musicians living in the metaverse. The crew has showcased collaborative VR projects at numerous festivals around the world including A MAZE./Berlin, Venice Biennale, and VRCon.

Tyson Cross

Tyson is an engineer, visual effects artist, VR evangelist and occasional actor. He has worked on more than 20 major films at post-production facilities including Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light & Magic, Double Negative and Cinesite. Films he has worked on include Children of Men, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and The Avengers. He has a background in classical theatre, a decade long career as a VFX Lighting Technical Director, and recently completed a B.Sc Eng. in Electrical and Informational Engineering at the University of Witwatersrand. He currently works in VR/XR as Head of Operations at Eden Studios in Johannesburg and is an active member of the Metaverse Crew South Africa.

Jason Stapleton

Jason works at the intersection of 3D animation, VR/AR, and Architectural Lidar scanning and Photogrammetry. He has worked as a computer draftsman, VFX artist, architectural visualization specialist for stills, animations and real-time, game developer and lidar scanning/photogrammetry service provider. Jason has over 15 years of experience in these various fields. He currently specializes in building virtual worlds to service the growing VR market and collaborating with sound and visual artists.

Dale Deacon

Dale, a co-founder of the South African weAReVRjozi community and a founding member of The MetaVerseCrew (MVC), is a VR world builder and 3D environmental artist. “Deac” runs the TeamEpic.org research and development lab, facilitating the design and development of proof-of-concept projects with a focus on immersive media.

CREDITS

Original concept: Tosca Terán and Sara Lisa Vogl

Mycelium bio-sonification & live music: Nanotopia

Dance Performance: R00T, IZZIT, LEXNEVILLEZA, NON-FUNGI, TYSON_X

World building: Metaverse Crew - deac.online / Dale Deacon, Phace / Jason Stapleton, Tonetastic / Sean Devonport

Avatar creation: Metaverse Crew - Dale Deacon (deac.online), Jason Stapleton (Phace), Sean Davonport (Tonetastic), Tyson Cross (Tyson_X), Sara Lisa Vogl (R00t) and Tosca Hidalgo y Terán

Atmospheric audio & performance audio set-up: Tonetastic / Sean Devonport

Trailer: Maud Clavier

Virtual world and live immersive music performance for up to 60 players | Running time: 30 mins | Platform: VRChat | Compatible headsets: HTC Vive/Pro/Pro 2/Cosmos, Oculus Rift/Rift S/Quest + link, Valve Index and Windows Mixed Reality headsets

Award nomination: Best Multiplayer Experience