Alpine networks
This project is about the Anthropocene, mushrooms, and alpine landscape. Well, how do these concepts fit together? As Europeans we are actually living in an age of abundance, an overflow of consumption and in a political environment that has given us security and peace for more than half a century. With ongoing globalization and ever-increasing worldwide connectivity we have nearly infinite possibilities for organizing our lives. Travelling has never been easier and connecting with people on the other side of the earth is a routine action. Technological progress has been growing faster than we could have imagined some years ago. However, our actions also come at a price. If humanity does not change its behavior, planet earth as we know it might be destroyed soon. This is where the potential of mushrooms comes in. Mushrooms are the visible fruiting bodies of a huge underground network consisting of mycelium. They may turn out to be an important key to both human and planetary health. Mycelium runs through our world, performing many tasks in nature, but does not seem very attractive to us humans. However, mycelium not only produces valuable digestive juices and antibiotics used in health care, it can also be used to create fully organic and decomposable building materials. Such building materials may in turn be useful for creating new structures in alpine landscapes. Alpine landscape with its rough and wild living conditions, is not made for human beings. But biological organisms like fungi or lichen developed a living process to survive in this seemingly empty environment. As long as humanity is preserving alpine topography as a living environment, nature can spread out its wings. Due to increasing human population growth, we will have to move back to the mountains sooner or later. ; Vitus Auer ; Universität Innsbruck, Masterarbeit, 2019 ; (VLID)3614666