A side-view mirror, strangely non-reflective.
Lens-less headlights. A gearstick jammed in reverse.
Abandoned vehicles in a winter forest – an Autofriedhof – slowly subside in the leaf litter.
Lichens erode complex compounds of car paints and parts. An aesthetic beauty emerges as emulsions and ideologies are eaten away as culture and nature converge.
De-composition
Fungal rotting captures the literary imagination, inspiring revolt and disdain. The characteristic metamorphoses of fungi upend ideas of nature hinged on stability and equilibrium.
Out of decay, disease and death, fungi come to life.
De-composition becomes composition.
Endless Forms Most Bizarre
Dispersing spores requires ingenuity. Solving the problem of distributing spores creates the beautiful architecture of the sporebody, argued mycologist Cecil Ingold in 1953.
The evolutionary improvisations of the last hundred million years are reflected in the bizarre bevy of endless fungal forms.
At times, these eccentric, subterranean intrusions seem both surreal and inexplicable. The mycologically-odd oozed and infused their way into folktales and the cult classics of science fiction; fantasy rendered fungal worlds amenable to narrative.
Etching gravestones, patterning rock and upholstering forest floors, lichens are among the first terrestrial colonisers.
In their slow and steady creep, lichens dismantle wood and stone, creating soil and the possibility for the succession of life to follow.
In a perfect example of cooperation and survival, lichens occupy extreme and often specialist niches by exploiting the advantages of communal living, slipping into a state of suspended animation when times get tough.