Metabolome: Anthropophagy Mediator

Human tissue is collected from barber shops across the city and then digested by Pleurotus ostreatus mycelium, producing edible mushroom biomass which is then consumed.

This act of Anthropophagy proposes the necessity of the digestion of the human in order to generate new ways of being.

Mycelium consumes human keratin, absorbing mitochondrial DNA, and digesting protein skeletons into hyphal highways

This project examines the possibility of metabolizing the human, in order to generate new narratives of humanness, post-digestion. A tapestry of human tissue is digested by fungal mycelium. In this process of digesting, the mitochondrial DNA of many human beings is absorbed into the hyphal network and incorporated into fungal cells as proteins and other macromolecules. This process creates a biochemical semiotic link between human and fungi, digesting the human in order to produce a more-than-human chimera.

The goal of this project is to collect and digest tissue from human beings, using fungi to produce edible biomass that can then be consumed at feasts of ritual cannibalism, which takes place through a fungal mediator.

In later versions of this project, psychoactive mushroom species will be explored in order to deepen the semiotic link between human and fungi, as well as to aid in the expansion of the human mind to the possibilities of divergent becomings that allow for the simultaneous conceptual and biochemical digestion of the Anthropocene.