Ecoshroom

2022 ~

Interspecies Communication

Ecoshroom

“Ecoshroom” is a winning project selected by S+T+ARTS – Hungry Ecocities 2023/24, which delves into in-soil symbiotics with mycorrhizal fungi and plants. This project explores the fascinating world of fungal decision-making and its potential impact on future crop resilience and growth. Through its unique fusion of art, architecture, science, and technology, Ecoshroom’s ongoing research embodies a holistic approach to seamlessly integrating natural systems into urban environments, showcasing innovative alternatives to the complex challenges of the climate crisis.

Circularity is essential for the nature of living systems, where in any system there is an input and output of energy. This is reflected in the circular perspective guiding the Ecoshroom experiment, that has an input from the human interaction to activate the robotic system that will feed the mycorrhizae, and consequently feed the plants & crops.

With this chain reaction, machine learning will collect data that is harvested from the sensors in order to answer certain questions:

Why does the mycorrhizae choose a certain plant root filament instead of the other?

How does the mycorrhizal hyphae make this selection?

At Brno/Mendel University (CZ), together with scientist Pavel Chaloupsky, in collaboration with the Botanical Institute of Prague, external stimuli were applied on plants inoculated with AMF: variations of temperature, humidity, CO2, ambient light and nutrition. These experiments were recorded to train the machine learning. It is important for the system implementation to explore and compare data such as morphological (plant height, leaf size, stem diameter, flower color, or root length), phenological (timing of biological events), environmental (temperature, light intensity, humidity, precipitation, moisture), physiological, experimental treatment (change the settings), efficiency of the system and quality of plants, mycorrhizae and crops, specifically for this part of the project.

Ecoshroom V01

“Making worlds is not limited to humans.”

— A. L. Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World

Ecoshroom by Alice Smith, curator from Zone2Source.

JUN-2025

Ecoshroom is an art science project that re-imagines life in urban areas. Emphasizing the need to bring agriculture back to cities, this installation experiments with the merging of natural and technological systems toward a more sustainable future. The exhibition features a custom-built AI that analyses and reveals the exchange of nutrients and carbon between mycorrhiza (a fungus) and plants. The installation engages visitors with a visual data stream as well as sounds that represent the plant and fungi communication. Visitors can also participate in the communication chain by eating fruit and leaving left-overs in a compost container, thus contributing to the functioning and cycle of the installation. Ecoshroom critically engages and provokes discussions about which technologies we want to develop from a vision on sustainability, climate change, and biodiversity by envisioning a harmonious coexistence between plants, fungi, and humans through technological innovation. Asking “What if plants were the brain of the building?”, Ecoshroom shows the possibilities for an innovative approach to architecture design: creating an autonomous system, guided by the cognition of plants and fungi, together with artificial intelligence. The glass pavilion where the work is presented is incorporated into the installation. Sensors are placed on the plants and fungi that generate signals to be analysed by the AI. The AI will then adjust the atmosphere such as temperature, light, CO2, and humidity according to the organisms’ needs. With the world’s population surpassing 8 billion, transformative narratives are crucial, addressing climate change, food security, and biodiversity. The continuing vast rates of deforestation and rampant overuse of fertilisers have depleted soils and ecosystems, threatening biodiversity. Ecoshroom invites us to reimagine a world co-created by plants, fungi, humans, and technology by shedding light on the possibilities of interspecies communication.

Interview by Alice Smith

Zone2Source, Amsterdam. Jun 2025

AS: Your latest project Ecoshroom, presented at Zone2Source, starts from the evocative question: “What if plants were the brains of a building?” Developed over two years in the context of an EU Start residency on Hungry Ecosystems, you propose novel ways in which plants take up a dominant role in our habitats. Can you say more about this vision that Ecoshroom proposes?

IH: With Ecoshroom, I explore a new kind of architectural intelligence — one that doesn’t rely solely on human logic, but emerges from the symbiotic relationships between plants, fungi, and humans. By asking “What if plants were the brains of the building?”, I invite us to rethink who (or what) should guide the environments we inhabit. This question is urgent in the context of the climate crisis and the sharp decline in food quality caused by industrial agriculture. Decades of synthetic fertilizers and extractive practices have harmed the health of soils, plants, humans, and ecosystems at large. Ecoshroom proposes an alternative: a living architecture where food production is integrated into the building’s core logic, where plants and fungi are treated not as passive elements, but as intelligent agents. After all, who knows more about the health of a plant than the plant itself, or the fungi that communicate with its roots? Through real-time analysis of bioelectrical signals and environmental data, the system learns and responds — adjusting light, water, nutrients, to support multispecies well-being. It’s a shift from extractive systems to co-evolutionary ones, where intelligence is not imposed, but grown in collaboration with life.

AS: Ecoshroom straddles several disciplines of art, design, science and architecture. Can you explain how you worked together on this project with such an interdisciplinary team, and how did they relate to the idea of the project?

IH: Ecoshroom was born from interdisciplinary thinking. The team brought different areas of expertise — from art, design, hard and software developers, architecture, biology, environmental science, and creative technology. What united us was a shared vision: the desire to create a sustainable, more-than-human future where plants, fungi, and humans can co-exist in balance and mutual support, a sort of mutualistic symbiosis. We collaborated closely across disciplines, discussing not only how to technically capture and interpret bioelectrical signals from plants and fungi, but also how to engage people and create an experience to reimagine their relationship with nature. We were all working toward the same goal: to build systems where communication across species becomes possible — not as science fiction, but as a real and necessary part of our shared future.

AS: As an artist working with living materials and engaging in many fields of knowledge you are continuously learning from other disciplines. How do you see your role as an artist engaging with scientific research and technological development?

IH: I have always been a curious person, and this curiosity has deep roots. I come from a family with a background in life sciences and engineering, and growing up, I was constantly exposed to both analytical thinking and biological processes. This naturally shaped the way I approach my work as an artist, where interdisciplinary thinking isn’t something I acquired later, it’s something I grew up with. In my practice, I work with living organisms, not “living materials.” This distinction is important. Referring to life as material often implies a degree of control, manipulation, or objectification, a view of nature as something to be used or modeled. In contrast, working with organisms acknowledges their agency, rhythms, and capacities to respond, adapt, and even teach us.

I see myself as a mediator, someone who navigates between the worlds of art, science, technology, and society. I don’t claim to be a scientist, but I engage deeply with scientific research and technological development to open new perspectives, pose critical questions, and create speculative spaces for imagining alternative futures. In the transdisciplinary teams I work with, this often means facilitating connections between fields, translating complex ideas into sensory and experiential forms, and foregrounding ecological and ethical concerns that may otherwise be overlooked. Ultimately, my role as an artist is to help reframe how we understand our relationship with the living world, especially in a time when technology is increasingly entangled with life itself. I aim to create works that not only explore these entanglements but also invite others to feel, reflect, and imagine more reciprocal futures.

AS: In Ecoshroom, the AI is learning over the course of the exhibition about the environmental needs of the plants and its relation to the fungi. Can you say more about how this machine learning process takes place. Do you expect the AI will keep the plants alive or will it take time for it to learn what it needs and what conditions is it controlling?

The AI in Ecoshroom is in its early learning phase. It needs time to observe, analyze, and interpret the bioelectrical signals coming from the plants and their symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi, alongside environmental data such as light, temperature, humidity, CO2, and soil moisture. This is not a pre-trained system; it is learning in real time, during the exhibition, how to respond meaningfully to the needs of these living organisms. Rather than aiming for instant optimization, the process embraces slowness and complexity, allowing the AI to gradually understand what conditions promote plant vitality and how these are reflected in the bioelectrical communication between the plant and the fungi. Over time, I expect the AI not only to help keep the plants alive, but to learn how to guide the broader environmental system within the architecture — creating a space that generates co-living between humans and other species. The conditions it is learning to regulate include artificial light spectrum (e.g., red/blue ratios), air and soil humidity, temperature, nutrient levels, and CO2 — all critical parameters for healthy plant-fungi and human interactions. This dynamic feedback system is designed to inform potential applications in future urban buildings where intelligent environmental regulation could be guided not by abstract metrics alone, but by the actual biological responses of living organisms.

AS: How did you come to the sound translation ?

IH: As for the sound translation: the sonic layer was developed as a way to give the audience a more intuitive and sensory access to this invisible communication. Each environmental state and biological response has a corresponding soundscape, for example, high temperature or low moisture creates tension or acceleration in the audio, while calm conditions result in more harmonic textures, as they are in their optimal state condition. This is not a literal translation, but rather a poetic and data-informed interpretation that invites people to “listen” to the organisms and their environment, enhancing our ability to relate to them emotionally and cognitively.

Microscopic image of a plant root colonized by Arbuscular Mycorrhizae Fungi.

interview continuation>>

AS: What is the role of the human within this cycle, who seems to participate rather than take control in a perfect plant environment?

IH: In Ecoshroom, the human is not positioned as the controller of the system, but as a participant within a larger, living network. The project challenges the anthropocentric model of design and instead proposes a post-natural vision of coexistence — where humans, plants, fungi, and machines interact in mutual responsiveness rather than domination. The post-natural here refers to an environment that is neither purely “natural” nor fully “artificial,” but a hybrid ecosystem shaped by technology, biology, and intention. In this context, humans are not engineering a perfect plant environment from above, but learning to engage with the complexity of life through participation, observation, and care.

Through the interactive interface, humans can influence the system by giving water or changing light spectra, but they also receive feedback through sound, light, and visualizations, learning alongside the AI how the organisms respond. This co-learning process and feedback loops emphasizes empathy and multispecies awareness, rather than control or optimization. The ultimate aim is not just to sustain the plants, but to shift our mindset from user to collaborator, from consumer to caretaker — re-creating an intimacy that was lost over time. In a time of climate crisis, Ecoshroom invites us to inhabit a new mode of living, where intelligence is distributed across biological and artificial systems, and where sustainability arises through shared agency within a post-natural ecology.

AS: Can you elaborate on how this vision of entanglement between plants, humans, and technology is similar to or different from the techno-modern vision of the use of AI in highly industrialized agricultural greenhouses?

IH: The vision behind Ecoshroom diverges significantly from the techno-modern approach found in highly industrialized greenhouses. While both use AI and environmental sensors to optimize plant growth, their underlying philosophies are fundamentally different. In industrial greenhouses, AI is typically used to maximize yield, minimize inputs, and tightly control environmental variables. Plants are treated as passive biological units within a system designed for efficiency and output, with technology serving narrowly human-centered goals, often overlooking ecological complexity and interdependence. By contrast, Ecoshroom proposes a post-anthropocentric and post-natural vision of entanglement. It doesn’t aim to dominate nature, but to collaborate with it. The AI system learns gradually from the electrical signals of plants and their mycorrhizal fungi, interpreting these in relation to shifting environmental conditions. It is not pre-trained to optimize output but grows in intelligence through co-existence — adapting in real time to the needs of living organisms. As I said before, humans are not masters of the system, but participants in a shared process of learning and responsiveness. The aim is not to build a perfectly controlled environment, but to foster a dynamic, co-evolving space where multispecies intelligence can flourish. This approach echoes Bruno Latour’s work, particularly his insistence that agency is not exclusive to humans but is distributed among networks of human and non-human actors. Latour argues for dissolving the boundary between nature and society, and Ecoshroom embodies this proposition by integrating biological, technological, and architectural systems into one relational, living network. Rather than treating plants and fungi as objects of control, Ecoshroom acknowledges them as active participants in shaping the environments we share, inviting us to rethink intelligence, design, and sustainability from the ground up.

AS: These artistic and design methods you work with do not lead so much to a product but rather engage in ongoing processes. Your works are prototypes that propose possible futures. Will you continue to develop this project or do you see that as a role for others to pick up on?

H: For me, prototypes are not unfinished products — they are essential tools for exploration, experimentation, and imagination. They allow space for speculation, for asking “what if?” without being bound to commercial or utilitarian outcomes. In my practice over the past 15 years, each work builds on the previous, forming a kind of genealogical tree. The technologies and designs I develop are not isolated events, but part of an evolving ecosystem of ideas, where each project carries the traces and learnings of those that came before. While these works often appear as autonomous installations or systems, they all hold the potential to be developed further, technically, socially, ecologically. However, as an artist, my role is not necessarily to bring each one to full deployment, but to create openings. My aim is to provoke questions like: Why isn’t this hybrid living amongst us? Why is this kind of technology not being developed further if it has already possibilities to exists? Why don’t we have more hybrid systems that involve living organisms and machines coexisting? In that sense, I see my work as proposing possibilities rather than delivering solutions. I hope that others — researchers, designers, technologists, communities — may pick up these threads, adapt them, and continue the exploration. These prototypes act as catalysts for dialogue and imagination, challenging our assumptions about what technology is, and what it could become if we let it grow alongside, and not apart from, the living world.

AS: Eleven years ago, Zone2Source presented another art science project by you titled Symbiotic Machine, a robot that swam in a pool we built in the glass pavillion with water and algeas from the park’s pont. Over the course of two months, together with scientists and students, you engaged people in conversations and workshops about this project. How do you ideally want to engage people in Ecoshroom and what should they take away from it?

IH: Symbiotic Machine was a pivotal project for me, not only in terms of working with living systems like algae and water ecosystems, but in how it created a space for public dialogue. For two months, we transformed the glasshouse into a living lab, where scientists, students, and visitors came together to discuss what it means for a machine to live symbiotically with nature. That experience reinforced my belief that art can be a space where knowledge is not just shown, but shared and questioned collectively. With Ecoshroom, I want to continue that spirit of open engagement, but expand it further. This time, the installation doesn’t swim: it listens, learns, and responds. It brings visitors into a multispecies environment where plants, fungi, AI, and humans co-create a living architecture. Ideally, people won’t just observe Ecoshroom; they will interact with it, witness how their presence affects the system, and begin to understand that intelligence isn’t something we own — it’s something we share. I want visitors to leave with more questions than answers. Questions like: What does it mean to live together, not just with other humans, but with plants and fungi? What kind of technologies do we want shaping our environments? Can we design systems that are more reciprocal, more attuned to life? In an age of ecological urgency and technological acceleration, Ecoshroom invites people to slow down, to listen, and to imagine futures where human progress is not at odds with the living world — but entangled with it in meaningful, co-creative ways.

Ecoshroom multifaceted :

Ecoshroom explore the communication between plants and mycorrhiza, creating an interactive installation that approaches humans to soil activities, exploring the fascinating world of interspecies communication
Ecoshroom showcases innovative approach to architecture, creating an autonomous system for intelligent buildings, guided by the cognitive abilities of plant and fungi together with artificial intelligence. A ‘living building block’ and a responsive biophilic building design are part of the installation
Ecoshroom is a project that enhances soil quality when unveiling plant and mycorrhiza association benefits for crops and plants resilience with the aid of a custom-made AI.

Ecoshroom: Understanding the Hidden Communication Between Plants and Fungi

The Ecoshroom project explores how plants and fungi—specifically mycorrhizae—work together and communicate over time. This research looks at how changes in light, water, nutrients (like phosphorus and potassium), and CO₂ levels affect their behavior. These changes simulate the effects of climate change. Mycorrhizae are special fungi that connect to plant roots and help them absorb water and nutrients more efficiently. They also play a key role in capturing carbon dioxide and making our food systems more sustainable.

One type, called Arbuscular Mycorrhizae (AM), forms networks with many different crops. These natural partnerships can reduce the need for chemical fertilizers and help plants grow stronger and healthier, even under stress. By learning how these living systems interact, Ecoshroom aims to support a more resilient and environmentally friendly way of growing food.

The Research

The Ecoshroom research started in 2022 during the Machine Wilderness residency program organised by Zone2Source together with FoAM, at Artis Amsterdam and Micropia. There, biologist and mycology expert Toby Kiers visited Ivan whilst he was researching at Artis Amsterdam, to discuss mutualistic relationships of mycorrhizae and plants. Inspired by this phenomena, Ivan conceived the idea for Ecoshroom.

During Hungry Ecocities residency, Ivan dived into the question whether we can find a common ground for coexistence between humans, plants, fungi, and technology in cities. Can an understanding of the mutualistic association of plants and mycorrhizae communication help develop future applications to architectural, human-made spaces? Could we ultimately develop cities coexisting with natural systems? Within this frame, Ivan speculates on how people would interact with a building that is controlled by this biological mutualism. In conversation with Hungry Ecocities mentors, renowned architects Stephan Petermann (OMA/ARCHIS/VOLUME) and Monika Löve and Chiara Borghi (Carlo Ratti Associati, CRA) these topics were often addressed together.

Microscopic image from plant roots inoculated br Arbuscular Mycorrhizae Fungi

During the program Ivan has conducted experiments with cultivated plants and fungi in concurrence with data extraction sensors, establishing a network of mycologists and environmentalists around Europe and beyond, such as at VU Amsterdam (Toby Kiers and Vasilis Kokkoris), VU Brussels (Joske Ruytinx), Brno/Mendel University (plant scientist Pavel Chalompsky), Universiteit van Amsterdam (Elly Morrien) and University of Torino (Cristina Varese).

Living Tile

The Living Tile is composed of translucent acrylic and showcases plant roots associated with AMF. The Living Tile is a building block material that can be used to further enhance the carbon capture potential of urban infrastructures, suggesting the possibility of transforming buildings walls into active participants in climate mitigation. The exploration of biofabrication and biodegradable materials provides an alternative to traditional construction materials. By replacing or adapting materials like plastics and concrete with the Living Tile, it can help reduce the environmental impact of the construction industry, a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The use of AMF and diverse plant species in Ecoshroom also supports urban biodiversity, which is crucial as biodiversity loss is both a cause and effect of climate change.