Mushroom Power Plant
Mushroom Power Plant encapsulates Urbonas Studio’s ongoing research in the field of energy humanities. It unfolds through a semi-fictional narrative about an alternative power plant and probes the hypothesis of energy produced by a symbiotic relationship between mushrooms and bacteria.
As a mycoglomerate, Mushroom Power Plant utilizes Geobacter bacteria that gains its energy by using iron oxide (an abundant rust-like mineral found in soils and sediments) in the same way humans use oxygen. The mud element connects with the component of carbonized mushroom slurry, which in turn replaces the graphite typical in conventional battery production.
For the Mud Muses – A Rant about Technology exhibition curated by Lars Bang Larsen at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden the Mushroom Power Plant is featured in the form of a three-dimensional scientific poster that brings together materiality of energy and model of pedagogy into the focus.
Credits: Concept: Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas; Studio production: Simona Kačinskaitė, Indrė Umbrasaitė, Rytis Urbanskas, Aistė Ambrazevičiūtė, Lucy Siyao Liu; Mushroom battery group at Kent University UK: Viktorija Makarovaitė, Sofia Perez-Villar; Bacteria battery group at KTU: Kristina Kantminienė and Egidijus Griškonis.