Joshua Wirz

[1] Photograph series of Fungi’s: Finished piece, exploration into the documentation of living organisms. Exploration into momentary documentation, and the flaws of Photography. Photographs taken at 400 and 100 X magnification. Fungi grown from Cucumerican growth over a period of two weeks on Agar petri dishes.

[2] Photographic series taken of Surface Moulds: Process piece, exploration of the documentation of living organism, observation of the surface qualities of developing organism. Photo’s taken using 20 X magnification. Geotrichum mould spores grown on Agar petri dishes over a period of four weeks. 

[3] Mould on Canvas: Initial manifestation of project. Work interested in the expanded field of painting. Preliminary project work. Work created before the direction of the project was decided. A4. Work created over a period of six weeks. Mixed media, perishables, canvas and glue. 

[4] Performance Observation: Piece is an advanced exploration of thoughts surrounding ongoing project. Idea derives from the thought track that the documentation of living organisms could, derive from the experiences and memories felt by the artist. Work created after the artist spent one hour each working day between the 5th and 12th of January observing and documenting through personal experiences, the process of growth in living organism. Work carried out in the laboratories in Leeds university Human Sciences Department.

[5] Dissection of Moss: Piece explores the fundamental principles of project. The piece attempts to answer the dilemma, surrounding the documentation of living organism. Piece aims to understand the structure of the growth of organisms through the process of dissection. A1. Mixed media, containing paper, glue, moss colony dissected into 1917 individual stems. 

[6] Display Cabinet: Work explores the idea of the use categorising species in contemporary science. Work inspired by the displaying and categorising of butterflies. Work outlines the different verities of lichen and fungi. Mixed media, victorian butterfly cabinet, collections of lychee and fungi. 

[7] Mould Box: Work shows the development project, work concerned with exploring the observation of mould in a changing space. Work developed to enable the viewer to observe the changing state of the natural organism from all sides and through out the process of growth. Dimensions, 31cm X 23 cm X 10 cm. Mixed media, layered acrylic, glue, perishables, canvas. 

[8] Analysed Fungi: Initial work, observing the process of analysing the growth of living organisms through observing the structure of the organisms growth pattern. Total surface mass of organism in the time of the photograph analysed. Corresponding graph shows information relating to fungi growth. Number of occupied millimetre squares in larger 10 by 10 square. Square numbers run from left to right descending across the picture. Use of photograph taken using microscopic photography at 100 X magnification. Cucumerican Fungi grown on Agar petri dish over the course of two weeks.

[9] Analysed Fungi: Initial work, observing the process of analysing the growth of living organisms through observing the structure of their growth patterns and the total surface mass of the organism in the time of the photograph. Corresponding graph shows information of the length of occupied lines. Lines are numbered ascending, corresponding column shown on bottom left of photograph. Use of photograph taken using microscopic photography at 100 X magnification. Cucumerican Fungi grown on Agar petri dish over the course of two weeks.

[10] Analysed Mould: Initial work, observing the process of analysing the growth of living organisms through observing the structure of their growth patterns and the geometric patterns that naturally occurred. Ink on photographic image. Image taken from a scan of Aspergillus mould grown on Agar on petri dishes over the period of 4 weeks.