In class, I tried the first-ever natural dyeing in my life (thanks Emma!) and before that, I didn't even know what the purpose of collecting those invasive plants was during the hike. I know some natural dyes in food, like Indian turmeric rice and Butterfly pea flower tea. But I never imagined people out there are trying to do natural dyeing with ingredients that are out of my expectation, for example, chestnuts, onion skins, and brazilwood.

I really enjoyed last week's class and how hands on we were! I have never tried natural dying before this. For reference the plant I collected is shown on the right. I was surprised to find the color turned into a bright yellow. The plant had bright green leaves, reddish stem, and the inside was more of a light yellow.

Last month my friends and I went on a 14-mile hike through the forest and winding roads of the Oregon coast and we came out with a treasure!! 

This giant Reishi mushroom was spotted by a guest mycologist who found it attached to a rotting tree trunk on the side of the road. Luckily one of our other friends (holding the mushroom in this pic) knew just what to do with it- He took it home to make a potent Reishi Tea, known for its healing, medicinal properties. 

Today I went out for the first time in 2-3 weeks to collect invasive plant species. I took my dog with me, which meant I wouldn't be able to walk for too long because he's fat, old, and lazy. The good thing was that when I went through the list of California's invasive plant species the night before, I recognized a lot of the plants. If I knew they were invasive plants, I would've uprooted them while I was young so I could get away with it... Anyways, I just decided to walk through my neighborhood and see what I would come across.

Cloaca Professional by Wim Delvoye (2010)

more info here

Here are some of the resources that were talked about yesterday! 

• Rupert Sheldrake

For the midterm I would like to focus on plastic waste, but especially waste from labelling. As we are in the time of quarantine, I have been ordering a lot of foods and supplies through internet delivery and whenever I receive a delivery I notice that I am overloaded with too much unnecessary waste of the boxes, tape and labels.

Here are some of the resources that were talked about today! 

• ARTSMESH

COVID-19 Data Visualization Through Sound

For our midterm project, Shreya and I have decided to work together to create a compelling collection of wearables using dehydrated fungi and repurposing fresh flowers.

Last quarter, I was thinking a lot about air and its qualities. Thinking about plants communicating through the release of volatile organic compounds (VOC) and sending cryptic messages by the grace of the winds felt very surreal for me.

        What are microplastics? According to the National Ocean Service, microplastics, in a nutshell, are “small plastic pieces less than five millimeters long which can be harmful to our ocean and aquatic life.” Generated from health and beauty products such as certain cleansers and toothpastes, microplastics come from our daily life and could potentially have a huge impact on our environment. Generally speaking, microplastics are tiny plastic detritus that can be easily ignored by the people.

During Week 5, we listened to our classmates’ midterm presentations for both Monday and Wednesday classes. It was really interesting to see the diverse range of projects within the biotech design realm presented. It truly shows how explorative the department of Design Media Arts can be, and I’m very excited to see everyone’s final projects.

This week the class was presenting midterm proposals for their project ideas based on what we have been learning in class. Seeing everyone’s proposals really opened up how diverse our ideas can be in response to what each of us found interesting from the course. Some subjects that people covered were plastics, recycling waste in fashion, using fungi/mycelium, the pollution problem, etc.

Looking back, my midterm presentation depicted a limited view of mycelium as a medium. That is not to say that I did not find an expansive web of information about the fungal network itself--I did, all the detailed research and resulting facts were there.