Living Probes in Place: Exploring More-Than-Human Care Through Mycoremediation

Paper Title

Living Probes in Place: Exploring More-Than-Human Care Through Mycoremediation

Publication Info

• Topic area: More-than-human (MTH) care in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) through mycoremediation practices.
• Keywords: More-than-human care, mycoremediation, Bio-HCI, place-based care, living artifacts, ecological stewardship, relational care, Research-through-Design, sustainability, environmental ethics.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Current MTH care research in HCI often focuses on dyadic relationships between humans and single species, neglecting the role of place and broader ecological interdependencies in care practices.
• Significance: Addressing this gap is critical for fostering sustainable and regenerative relationships between humans, ecosystems, and technologies, particularly in the context of environmental crises and biodiversity loss.
• Motivation and related work: Prior work in MTH care and Bio-HCI has explored care for living artifacts like plants, bacteria, and fungi, but often in controlled or dyadic contexts. This paper extends the focus to place-based care, emphasizing the relational and ecological dimensions of care situated in specific locales.

Solution

• Proposed approach: The study conceptualizes mycoremediation as a place-based MTH care practice, using a living mycelium composite (referred to as a "living probe") to explore care relations in specific places.
• Novelty:
  1. Empirical investigation of mycoremediation as a situated MTH care practice.
  2. Design implications for living artifacts that foster ecological and affective connections to place.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • A two-week study with 12 participants who placed and cared for a living mycelium probe in locations they deemed in need of care.
  • Participants kept diaries and participated in group interviews to reflect on their experiences.
  • Reflexive thematic analysis was used to identify themes related to care practices, ecological awareness, and relational dynamics.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Participants adjusted routines to care for the living probe, often selecting neglected or hidden places.
  • Care practices evolved from a dyadic focus (human-probe) to an ecological model, emphasizing interdependencies with place and other species.
  • Participants questioned their competence and the ethics of intervention, reflecting on what constitutes "good care" in complex ecosystems.
• Advantage over baselines: Unlike prior studies focused on dyadic care models, this study highlights the role of place and ecological relations, expanding the scope of MTH care to include broader care ecologies.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Study design: Two-week placement and maintenance of a living probe.
  • Data collection: Diaries (198 images, 3,450 words) and group interviews (5 sessions, 50–90 minutes each).
  • Analysis: Reflexive thematic analysis with iterative coding and triangulation.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Homogeneous participant pool (master’s students in the Netherlands) limited diversity of perspectives.
  • Short study duration (two weeks) constrained the development of long-term care practices.
  • Future work should engage with communities practicing place-based care and adopt longitudinal approaches to study care over extended periods.

Summary

This paper explores more-than-human (MTH) care through the lens of mycoremediation, using a living mycelium probe to investigate care practices situated in specific places. Findings reveal that participants’ care practices evolved from dyadic relationships with the probe to ecological awareness of place-based interdependencies. The study underscores the importance of partial legibility in living artifacts to foster attentiveness to ecological cues and relational care. Design implications include shifting from dyadic to distributed care models, embracing ambiguity in living artifacts, and promoting embodied, repeated stewardship in place. This work contributes to MTH care, Bio-HCI, and place-based design by emphasizing the relational and ecological dimensions of care necessary for sustainable human-nature relations.