Membranas Zombies

Membranas Zombies (Muaj!, 2022) explores zombification as a process of transformation towards a new hybrid stage between the living and the dead, the valid and the invalid, the human and the non-human, fleeing from the binarism that dissects reality based on the patterns of the recognisable and therefore usable. How do we become zombies ? Can a process of zombification open new horizons of possibility beyond positivist binarisms? How can this speculative entity address the question on how to live in a damaged planet?

This last question engages with the mushrooms’ hability to adapt and digest different contaminant agents such as plastic derivates. Of course it's also about defying the fear of contamination in mushrooms cultivation, imagining that living with and learn to thrive with contaminant agents is an adaptive survival strategy.

The project took shape at the Arts Santa Monica center (February – May 2022, Barcelona) as an experimental installation of living speculative design , based on the life cycle of fungi and the (im)possibilities of containing them. It was composed of membrane-devices combining materials and technological means of 3d printing digital fabrication with filaments such as PLA filament (polylactic acid), derived from raw materials and renewables, together with different organic substrates and mycelia at different stages of growth. All the membrane devices were connected with each other to allow the contact and transfer of matter and foster contamination processes between them.