fungal sounds, 2024

biosonification of mushrooms using modular synthesis

fungal sounds was an exploratory project focused on the process of biosonification.

as part of professor timothy weaver’s biomedia class at the university of denver, we grew several types of mushrooms from fruiting blocks. when the mushrooms reached maturity, they were connected to a modular synth system using probes to capture electrical feedback. those electrical signals ran through and were modified by the other synth modules and output to a zoom recorder.

the purpose of this project was to become familiar with the process of biosonification and to create a library of sounds for use in later pieces.

the snippets featured here are a selection of my recordings from this process and were created with lion's mane and oyster mushrooms, as well as myself, connected to the synth.