POLYCEPHALIC PATHWAYS
SYNTHETIC LANDSCAPE LAB
Transmission of pollution knowledge and history through reinterpretation of the melting glacial intelligence and integrating its knowledge into the shared consciousness by an immersive experiential landscape. Pollution becomes a cultural material, an information, experienced through a pathway network designed through intelligence of one cellular organism slime mold, actively raising attention to the elements that are unseen or immaterial.
PROCESS
A crucial part of this investigation is the incorporation of the main pollutants found on the Marmolada as a transmittal intelligence force: pollution through heavy metals, the first world war, and microplastics.
It contains information difficult to comprehend, but essential for the understanding of landscapes. Being seen as anti-material, pollution is often marginalized to its destructive and toxic properties. These particles nevertheless are an integral part of the ecosystem and are, in fact, knowledge of the world we live in. This way we start thinking of pollution as cultural material and indulging in their understanding.
What makes the Marmolada unique is its history, since in WW1 there has been the frontier right across it. The soldiers dug an underground city in rock and ice, in order to hide from the enemy. They used it also to store a large number of weapons and gasses. These pollutants, due to years of storage, are now slowly released.
In order to create a productive landscape of knowledge, rather than trying to stop the pollution, we focused on Physarium Polycephalum, better known as slime mold. Through the growth of it, a path network can be created.
EXPERIENTIAL LANDSCAPE
The final outcome is an immersive experiential landscape in which Pollution becomes a cultural material, an information, experienced through an intelligent pathway network.
It will be a path of the landscape, inviting people to follow it. Experience will be the crucial element: actively raising attention to the elements that are usually unseen or immaterial, combine science with the beauty of this landscape.
