RESIDUA
MAPPING DISINTEREST THROUGH FUNGAL COLONISATION
Alessio Caccamo , Claudia Rio
Sapienza Università di Roma,
KEYWORD
#planned obsolescence
#visualization
#colonization
#research through design
ABSTRACT
Residua proposes decomposition as an epistemological tool, collapsing
the distance between evidence and representation. Instead of illustrating
abandonment, the publication physically enacts it: designed to decay
through fungal colonisation, the book becomes an organism that
produces knowledge through its own deterioration. Mould acts as a
biological index of collective disinterest, revealing what society neglects
to maintain, preserve, or invest in. Its material decay becomes an active
archive of systemic abandonment and the choices that produce it.
CREATIVE PROCESS
Residua developed through a parallel dialogue between theoretical
research and biological experimentation. Fungal growth, thermal paper
degradation, and material testing informed the creation of a book
designed as an organism that does not resist its own decay. Positioned
between academic research and artistic practice, the project combines
controlled experimentation and open ecological processes to make
material decomposition an integral part of its critical framework.
IMPLICATIONS & NEXT STEPS
Residua proposes a design position in which matter itself becomes a critical tool. By embodying systemic disinterest through decomposition, the project moves beyond representing absolescence to making it materially visible. Its residue becomes an active archive of what remains after usefulness is extracted, exposing the structures of forgetting and offering a framework for future research into biological decay, institu— tional archives, and accelerated obsolescence.
References
Rosa, H. (2013). Social
Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity. New York: Columbia University Press. Sheldrake, M. (2020). Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures. New York: Random House. Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative Everything:
Design, Fiction, and Social
Dreaming. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Tsing, A. L. (2015). The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.