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Abstract
Humans have interacted with algae for millennia. This paper describes the human journey in the company with algae from the earliest days of our species until today where the need for a green transition and sustainable eating behaviour has put renewed focus on algae as a material of many uses not least as foodstuff. The evolution of Homo has been shaped by our ancestors being seashore dwellers with plenty of access to marine foodstuff that contains critical nutritional elements for the evolution of the large human brain. Being at the bottom of the food web, algae are the source of nutrients, e.g., the precious super-unsaturated fatty acids, that pile up through the food chains, but it starts with the marine algae. Algae have during times been a rich source for human activities as a material of unique composition and multiple uses. Algae are currently in focus as a green, sustainable food source because algae are at the base of the trophic web, feeding directly off the sun. Macroalgae (seaweeds) in particular have influenced human life conditions both on evolutionary timescales as well as in recent centuries and all the way into the Anthropocene. No wonder that these organisms have entered human mythology, folklore, poetry, art, and gastronomy. This paper will focus on two often overlooked facets of algae, which have been of key importance for their interwoven relationship with humans: their beauty and their taste.
Abstract
To lay the foundations for the Biocene, a potential future era of our Anthropocene human habitat, the infrastructure of our built environment should play a more active role in carbon mitigation and reduction. Algae and cryptogrammic species will become important elements of bio-integrated “photosynthetic cities”. However, to realise this, we will need to relinquish notions of monoculture and purity associated with highly maintained and controlled cultivation. This chapter will look back at the origins of contained microalgal culture in the realms of science and engineering to understand the basis for our current design language. We assume the position that in future, consortia-based approaches with direct exposure to the outdoor environment will be required in order to deliver the vision of algae for bioremediation or microbiome-inspired green infrastructure in a resilient way. Ultimately, our photosynthetic human habitat will embody a more provocative and disobedient condition. Reconciling with the abject nature of biofouling, overcoming disgust and ultimately reaching an acceptance of the sublime will be needed in order to form ecologically relevant and environmentally meaningful interventions. The role of design will be pivotal to introduce a new aesthetic which is based on how we embrace self-regenerative conditions while promoting heterogeneity and biodiversity in buildings.
Abstract
Lake Akan, located on Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido, is home to world famous algae: spherical-shaped growths of Aegagropila linnaei known in Japanese as marimo (and sometimes called “moss balls” in English). Marimo have become a charismatic species internationally, a rare feat for an alga. Lake Akan hosts an annual three-day Marimo Festival, which began in 1950 as a way of drawing attention to the endangered species and as a means of celebrating the culture of the Indigenous Ainu community in the wake of settler colonialism. A key element to marimo’s popularization is a widely-circulated story – a purported Ainu folktale that tells of two young, star-crossed lovers who jump into Lake Akan and become marimo. This tale has been used for decades to promote tourism to the Lake Akan area. However, in 2017, algae researcher Wakana Isamu traced the origins of the tale back to a Japanese writer named Nagata Kōsaku, who invented the tale and falsely claimed its Ainu origins in 1924. This chapter asks what it means for this tale of imagined indigeneity to have been embraced and reclaimed by the Ainu community of Kushiro in the name of conservation twice-over – that of rare algae and Ainu identity itself.
Abstract
Algae in the wild form consortia with other species which promote their own health and proliferate food sources. The recent increase in laboratory algae cultivation in commercial photobioreactors (PBR) so far has focused mainly on propagating single species of algae, rather than multi-species polycultures. Considering the current status of sterile PBR ecological habitat, the chapter investigates rearranging PBR set-up to take into account algal communication within and across species. These mutualistic species form the ‘phycosphere’: the microenvironment surrounding microalgal cells, potentiating the production of certain metabolites through interaction with cohabitating microorganisms. Better understanding the phycosphere prompts PBRs to become attentive to and incorporate algal-microbial consortia, to better arrange conducive habitats for algal flourishing as interspecies symbionts. From a multisolving approach, this may decrease the inputs needed for artificially maintaining growth-systems, moving from status quo sterility to multispecies co-maintenance. PBR polycultures also invite us to reconsider the role water plays within aquaculture, teaching us to appreciate water health and diversity, as has been done with soil.
Abstract
The chapter uses a poetic, autophenomenographic text, which contemplates the cliffs of the Danish island Fur, built by fossilized micro-algae of the group diatoms, as an entrance point to a reflection on a planetary ethics of companionship. Rather than approaching the 55 million year old diatomite cliffs as material from which to extract value, it is suggested that they should be seen as wise ancestors, who can teach us lessons about life, death and time. The chapter, firstly, gives a brief introduction to diatom biology and the geohistory of diatomite (sediments of fossilized diatoms), to the author’s intimate feelings of companionship with alive and fossilized diatoms, and to the posthuman autophenomenographic methodology which guides her contemplations of diatoms. Secondly, the author discusses the revised understandings of life, death, and time which her efforts to corpo-affectively empathize (symphysize) with alive and dead diatoms helped her to establish. She accounts for the ways in which these revisions are sustained by a vitalist materialist and immanence philosophical approach. In an open-ended conclusion, she suggests an ethics of planetary companionship, based on the contemplations of the bonds, she has established with the diatoms.
Abstract
Algae was once a valuable resource for crafts around the world. In Japan, funori (Gloipeltis tenax, Gloiopeltis complanate, Gloiopeltis furcate) seaweed glue historically aided in the creation of kimono fabric, shoji sliding doors, and ceramic finishes. The strong fronds of bull kelp (Durvillaea potatorum) are fashioned into leather-like water-carriers by the aboriginal people of lutruwita (Tasmania), in a tradition that continues to present day. In Denmark, Irish moss (Chondrus crispus) was used as a base to create a matte, even ceiling paint. This historical use also reveals a cultural connection to algae, in countries like Denmark and in Japan, in the way certain species were chosen for craft as opposed to being used as a potential food source.
However, with the rise of industrialized production, many of these vernacular applications of seaweed have become obscure, used only in restoration and local heritage projects. When the average person looks at seaweed today, they typically only see food, or worse, a rotting mass on a beach, instead of a potential craft material.
By using algae material-based design as a resource and a tool for education, we can begin to build a cultural connection with algae again in Western Europe.
Abstract
Algal blooms have been utilised by humans as nutritious food, inspired naturalists with bioluminescent dinoflagellate spectacles, but remain much undervalued by the public as the source of fossil fuels, every second breath of oxygen we inhale, and even the origin of eukaryotic life on our planet. Instead, algal blooms have been increasingly associated by human society with beach health danger and seafood poisoning, signs of nutrient pollution or impending climate change. While the impacts of harmful algal blooms on human society have been increasing, this trend is largely driven by intensified monitoring associated with enhanced aquaculture. Satellite imagery has visualised the global scale of algal bloom phenomena, and newly highlighted their role in driving climate. We demonstrate how our massive increase in knowledge of microalgae has been driving ever changing perceptions of good and bad algal blooms, and recognition of the central role microalgae play on our planet, as well as for our human future.
Abstract
In ‘Phytofictions and Phytofication’, designer, researcher and educator Julia Lohmann introduces her practice-led research into seaweed as a material for making. In her work, macro-algae are material, method and muse in one. Lohmann makes a case for speculative and co-speculative design approaches to biomaterial development with an empathic mindset towards regenerative practices. She advocates a shift in the role of designers from individual authors to enablers of communities of practice that envision less harmful multi-species relations, set against the backdrop of the climate crisis. The ‘Department of Seaweed’, a community of practice Lohmann founded at the Victoria & Albert Museum London, demonstrates how museums can expand their role as repositories of artefacts into becoming spaces for multisensory material engagements and learning. Lohmann explains how ‘phytofication’ – actively embracing the material agency of macroalgae and treating it as a co-designer – enabled the development of biomaterials and objects that communicate the potential of seaweed to diverse publics. These in turn sparked ‘phytofictions’: conversations on how we might use algae and other biomaterials in the future. Julia Lohmann believes that working with algae, through phytofictions and phytofication, can help us shift our mindset from extraction towards regeneration – if we, as a species, learn from algae.