MCEL is a comprehensive toolkit that combines biology, digital technology, and physical equipment to facilitate mushroom extraction and cultivation. This project aims to provide individuals with the means to grow and maintain a variety of valuable mushrooms, which have a wide range of applications in different environments and use cases. The idea stems from the possibility of a portable, living bioreactor that enables fungal life and the “end of the world” scenario.
Although mushrooms are an uncommon “tool” to bring with you, they might be able to offer us more than we think. What would we need, and what can fungi offer us? The fungi are a personal selection by Anne that she would want to collaborate with and keep safe. They are chosen for their wide range of use cases and applications in different environments. The fungi offer food and medicine, but also physical safety and security, mental well-being, and self-actualization. The chosen mushrooms can be used (amongst many other things) to create biofuel, light, sheet materials, textiles, rubber, paper, and inks, do bioremediation, and provide emotional and spiritual well-being.
This fully functional toolkit provides the possibility to take care of these mushrooms under all circumstances and have them available. It provides different kinds of storage and options for cultivation. The fungi are stored as spores for long-term storage (100+ years), culture slants (test tubes for one-year storage), slates (for direct use), and liquid culture options for ultra-fast deployment. The kit contains a library of 5 fungi, an MCEL assistant (a smart mycology assistant), an incubator, cold storage, FLOW system (for liquid cultures), SAB (still air box), and all the tools and consumables you need. The additional information, the project, and all myco-workflows are documented in the MCEL zine.
Final project Biohack Academy 2023
