antennae THE JOURNAL OF NATURE IN VISUAL CULTURE AUTUMN 2020 vegetal entanglements Editor in Chief Giovanni Aloi – School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Sotheby’s Institute of Art Academic Board Steve Baker – University of Central Lancashire Melissa Boyde – University of Wollongong Ron Broglio – Arizona State University Matthew Brower – University of Toronto Eric Brown – University of Maine at Farmington Carol Gigliotti – Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver antennae Donna Haraway – University of California, Santa Cruz THE JOURNAL OF NATURE IN VISUAL CULTURE Susan McHugh – University of New England edited by Giovanni Aloi Brett Mizelle – California State University Claire Parkinson – Edge Hill University Cecilia Novero – University of Otago Jennifer Parker–Starbuck – Royal Holloway Annie Potts – University of Canterbury Antennae (founded in 2006) is the international, peer reviewed, academic Ken Rinaldo – Ohio State University journal on the subject of nature in contemporary art. Its format and Nigel Rothfels – University of Wisconsin contents are inspired by the concepts of ‘knowledge transfer’ and ‘widening Jessica Ullrich – Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg participation’. Three times a year, the Journal brings academic knowledge Andrew Yang – School of the Art Institute of Chicago within a broader arena, one including practitioners and a readership that Global Contributors may not regularly engage in academic discussion. Ultimately, Antennae Sonja Britz / Tim Chamberlain / Conception Cortes / Lucy Davis / Amy Fletcher / Katja Kynast / Christine Marran / Carolina encourages communication and crossovers of knowledge amongst Parra / Zoe Peled / Julien Salaud / Paul Thomas / Sabrina Tonutti / Joanna Willenfelt artists, scientists, scholars, activists, curators, and students. In January 2009, the establishment of Antennae’s Senior Academic Board, Advisory Advisory Board Board, and Network of Global Contributors has afrmed the journal as an Rod Bennison / Helen J. Bullard / Claude d’Anthenaise / Lisa Brown / Chris Hunter / Karen Knorr / Susan Nance / Caroline indispensable research tool for the subject of environmental and nature Picard / Andrea Roe / David Rothenberg / Angela Singer / Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson studies. Contact the Editor in Chief at: [email protected] Visit Copy Editor and Design our website for more info and past issues: www.antennae.org.uk Erik Frank and Giovanni Aloi Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture (ISSN 1756-9575) is published triannually by AntennaeProject, Chicago. Contents copyright © 2020 by the respective authors, artists, and other rights holders. All rights in Antennae: The Jour- nal of Nature in Visual Culture and its contents reserved by their respective owners. 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(detail) Digital print on hand-cut, archival watercolor paper with hand-cut paper elements, also represent the frst published instance for the work, a written request for a re-print needs to be forwarded to the Editor in poster board, acrylic gel medium, hot glue, plastic letters, feathered butterfies 95 1/2 x 107 x 2 in. (242.6 x 271.8 x 5.1 cm) Courtesy order to obtain authorisation for partial or full reproduction of the work. Interview questions written for Antennae and relative of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago and Hales Gallery, New York/London. answers supplied by interlocutors become, upon publication, intellectual property of Antennae and a written request for a re- print needs to be forwarded to the Editor in order to obtain authorisation for partial or full reproduction in other publications. sociates and don’t seem to give anything back. Then where does Voyria’s car- bon come from? Voyria’s mycorrhizal fungal partners obtain all of their carbon from photosynthetic plants. This means that the carbon that powers the life of Voyria — and which makes up the stuf from which they are made — must Hackers of the ‘wood wide web’ : come from nearby photosynthetic plants through a shared fungal network. If carbon couldn’t pass from plant to plant through mycorrhizal fungi, Voyria could not exist. a visual guide Voyria are what’s known as ‘mycoheterotrophs’. ‘Myco’ because they depend on a fungus, ‘heterotroph’ (from ‘hetero’, meaning ‘other’; and ‘troph,’ meaning ‘feeder’) because they don’t photosynthesise and have to obtain their energy from elsewhere. Around ten percent of plant species share the habit: The ancestors of plants could not have moved from the water onto the land some 500 million years ago without striking up it is a way of life that has evolved independently in at least forty-six separate a relationship with fungi. Today, nearly all plants depend on the symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi that live in their roots. Some plant lineages. Some species, such as Voyria, remain mycoheterotrophs for their plants have become fully dependent on their fungal partners, and have lost the ability to photosynthesise. These plants are whole life. Some — like most species of orchid — live as mycoheterotrophs when able to draw their nutrition from their photosynthetic neighbours through shared fungal networks, and thus became gateway- they’re young, and start to photosynthesise when they grow older, an approach organisms to the concept of the ‘wood wide web’. This sequence of images documents the life of one of these peculiar plants, known as ‘take now, pay later’. All twenty-fve thousand species of orchid are the jungle gentian, Voyria tenella, and reveals the astonishing intimacy of the association between plants and fungi — an mycoheterotrophs at some point in their development, whether they take now association that lies at the base of the food chains that sustain nearly all life on land, including our own. and pay later, or take now and continue to take later, as Voyria does. Because fully mycoheterotrophic plants like Voyria don’t appear to give anything back to the fungus, they are sometimes described as parasites. However, it isn’t known text by Merlin Sheldrake whether mycoheterotrophs provide other benefts to fungi, such as protection or vitamins, in return for nutritional support. Shared mycorrhizal networks arise because both plants and mycorrhi- zal fungi are promiscuous and can form relationships with multiple partners. n the rainforests of Central America lives a small gentian fower, Voyria And indeed, mycoheterotrophs aren’t the only plants to receive nutrition from tenella, that has lost the ability to photosynthesise. These plants are nei- other plants via fungal connections. Since the mid 1990s, it has been known Ither green, nor do they have leaves. They grow in deeply shaded parts that some species of ‘normal’ green plant behave in similar ways. For example, of the forest understory where few other plants can live. But how? In most in the temperate forests of British Columbia, on the west coast of Canada, car- cases, photosynthesis is a fundamental feature of planthood. Without it, bon passes between birch trees and Douglas fr trees, fowing ‘downhill’ from Voyria are unable to produce the energy-rich carbon compounds — sugars larger plants with more access to resources into smaller plants. A wide range and lipids — that they need to live. In fact, neither are they able to take up of substances have since been found to pass between plants via shared fungal mineral nutrients and water from the soil. Their roots have evolved into connections — whether nitrogen, phosphorus, water, toxins, the chemicals clusters of feshy fngers ill-suited to absorb anything at all. that regulate plant growth, and even signalling compounds. These shared my- Over ninety percent of plants depend on mycorrhizal fungi — from corrhizal networks are sometimes referred to as the ‘wood wide web’. the Greek words for fungus (mykes) and root (rhiza) — to provide them with Mycoheterotrophs — ‘hackers’ of the wood wide web — lured bota- mineral nutrients from the soil such as nitrogen or phosphorus. In return, nists into discovering an entirely new biological possibility, making them gate- plants provide their fungal associates with the carbon compounds produced way organisms to the concept of shared mycorrhizal networks. Perhaps it is in photosynthesis. Both have evolved to farm each other. The relationship no surprise. Released from the need to have leaves or produce chlorophyll — is ancient, and prolifc. Without fungi, the algal ancestors of plants would the green pigment that makes photosynthesis possible — mycoheterotrophs have been unable to move out of the water and onto land around 500 mil- are free for evolution to pull them in new aesthetic directions. Many are eye- lion years ago. It was another ffty million years before plants evolved roots. catching and charismatic, and their peculiar appearances have long been the During this time, mycorrhizal fungi were plants’ roots, providing nutrients