Emre Akal

Deep down where the soils are not yet depleted and acidified. There, underground, is the mycorrhiza highway - the Wood Wide Web - through which fungal networks and plant roots connect. Where a whisper and a rustle penetrates through the root system. There, where not only symbioses, but also alliances develop. This is where information about unsuspecting people is collected, processed and forwarded. From mushroom to mushroom. From forest to forest. From Perlacher Forst to Equatorial Guinea. Everywhere they are witnesses of human destinies: whether it is the quiet disintegration of a nuclear family in the suburbs or the last big quarrel of an old man on an Aegean island. The plants and fungi are connected and comment on what is happening. The birth of the first man, wars, deaths - the Wood Wide Web stood firm. But trees, bushes, and mushrooms groan with exertion. Because the soot of millennia clings to the foliage, penetrates roots and mycelia. The system brings up anomalies. Suddenly it's not so clear whether there is still an analogue life in the digital world at all... or whether digital roots have long since dug in.
In Wood Wide Web, Emre Akal addresses the communication processes between man and nature. A piece about the feeling of alienation in the 21st century - both from nature and from oneself. In doing so, he by no means sketches a devastating doomsday scenario, but vividly shows how delicate our relationship is with other organisms, with which we have much more in common than one might think - the unconditional will to survive. Wood Wide Web is a continuation of his piece Hotel Pink Lulu, in which Akal addresses the digital migration of humans into virtual worlds. Another reminder of the present.