GMU:If the organism will not come to me, I will go to the organism/Betül Kurt

IDEA

My idea is to built a Physarum terrarium. In this little house for Physarum I can watch life cycle of the organism in it's natural environment.

Petri dishes are not natural environment for slime molds. They are growing out from their tiny petri dishes so fast. So I thought a bigger and greener new home will be more suitable for them. For a while I let them just be and they were everywhere but then they started to dry and no more growing. And I thought they really need a new and a better home. First I wanted to make a terrarium with a fish tank but I couldn't find one. Later an idea came to my mind. I had a lot of empty glass jars at home so I decided to make little terrariums with them. I cooked some medium pour theme bottom of the jars, they were almost ready now. I went to the Ilm Park and picked dry branches and dead leaves and I put them in jars. Later I put tiny pieces of slime molds on different places inside the jars and just wait.

I am waiting for them to grow inside the jars. In the next days, my plan is make a dark and scary little installations. I got this inspiration from the horror movie The Blob (1958). I want to use organic artificial blood in the jar, put tiny gravestones and maybe put some real spider webs that already exist in my room. I will give names to Physarums so they will have characters and they will be more close to human nature. Just like naming our pets, doing the same thing for slime molds will strengthen our bond. I will put their names on tiny gravestones so when they dryed and kind of dead, their graves will be ready, just like human beings.

First meeting with the Physarum

First look to the terrarium installation