RMtract

RMtract (radio mycelial tract) is a four channel audio installation using machine learning text and voices, instigating riot and revolt from mycelial mushroom bodies, housed in a burnt car.

Mycelial radio vocalisations (generated from the measurement of small electromagnetic signals within the shiitake mushroom bodies) are filtered by bespoke computer modelled vocal tracts trained on protests, riots and car burning audio. There are four voices which take different approaches and models, and use changing languages and texts. The texts spoken or murmered by each voice are generated from both speech to text software, interpreting the mycelial voices, and from a software which works with small language models trained on newspaper reports of protests and car burnings, transcriptions of protests and theoretical texts around revolutionary actions.

RMtract was accompanied by an activation performance. RMtract activation boots up a direct networked connection to forest shiitake mycelium, within a performance opening up human speech and vocalisation to other, foreign material processes, to other living and non-living beings, to the electromagnetic and to the geologic. RMtract gives voice to a technological forest of mycelium, wrecked cars, riots and radio waves as part of Shu Lea Cheang's portal porting.

RMtract was developed as part of Shu Lea Cheang's Portal Porting and is shown at Haus de Kunst, 2025.

With many thanks to Shu Lea Cheang, Sarah Johanna Theurer and Andrea Lissoni.

Images credit: Milena Wojhan