Entangling Like Mycorrhizae: Mixing Realities Through Touch in "FungiSync"

The paper presents *FungiSync*, a multi-person mixed reality experience that translates the symbiotic interdependence of mycorrhizal networks into an embodied ritual where participants' individual digital perceptual worlds entangle through physical touch, fostering a "fungal epistemic" perspective that critiques accelerated individualism.

The Gist

Imagine a world where you don't just see reality, but you feel it through your skin, and where touching someone else's hand literally changes what you see.

That is the core idea behind FungiSync, a new mixed-reality art project described in this paper. Here is a simple breakdown of what it is, how it works, and why it matters, using some everyday analogies.

🍄 The Big Idea: Nature's "Wi-Fi"

First, let's talk about the inspiration. Deep underground, trees and plants are connected by a massive, invisible internet made of fungi (mushrooms). Scientists call this the "Wood-Wide Web."

• How it works: A tree with lots of sunlight can send sugar to a baby tree in the shade. A tree under attack by bugs can send a warning signal to its neighbors. They aren't just individuals; they are one big, sharing team.
• The Problem: In our modern digital world, we are the opposite. We live in "filter bubbles." Algorithms show us only what we like, isolating us in our own little worlds. We are more connected than ever, yet we often feel alone in our own personalized realities.

FungiSync asks: What if our digital technology worked like the Wood-Wide Web instead?

🎭 The Experience: Becoming a Tree

Imagine walking into an art gallery. You see a stand that looks like a tree stump, holding several masks that look like fancy Venetian masquerade masks, but with little mushrooms growing on them.

1. Putting on the Mask: When you pick up a mask (which is actually a smartphone strapped to a headset), you become a "plant."
2. Your Secret World: Through the mask, you see a psychedelic, colorful world floating over the real room. But here's the twist: You only see your own "resources."
   • Maybe you see floating blue bubbles (water).
   • Maybe your friend sees glowing yellow stars (sunlight).
   • Another friend sees green sparkles (minerals).
   • Analogy: It's like everyone is wearing sunglasses that only let through one specific color of light. You are in the same room, but you are seeing totally different things.

🤝 The Magic: The Handshake

This is where the magic happens. In our normal world, if you shake hands with someone, you just feel a handshake. In FungiSync, touching hands is like plugging into the Wood-Wide Web.

• The Connection: When you and your friend touch hands, the system detects it. Suddenly, your "water bubbles" start to leak into your friend's view, and their "sunlight stars" start to leak into yours.
• The Mix: The longer you hold hands, the more your two worlds blend together. You start seeing a mix of water and sunlight. It feels like you are sharing your soul (or at least your digital vision) with them.
• The Decay: If you let go, the shared colors slowly fade away, just like nutrients get used up in nature. If you don't keep connecting, your world becomes sparse and lonely again.

🧠 Why Does This Matter?

The creators call this "Fungal Epistemics" (a fancy way of saying "learning through fungal logic").

• It's a Lesson in Empathy: You can't understand what your friend sees just by looking at them. You have to touch them to share the experience. It teaches that we are all different, but we need to connect to be whole.
• It Critiques Our Phones: Our current tech (like social media) isolates us in our own bubbles. FungiSync suggests a different future where technology encourages us to mix our worlds, not hide in them.
• It's a Ritual: It turns a simple handshake into a sacred act of sharing. It makes the invisible idea of "interdependence" something you can feel in your bones.

🌟 The Takeaway

FungiSync is like a dance where you don't just move your body; you move your reality.

It invites us to stop thinking of ourselves as isolated islands and start thinking of ourselves as part of a giant, underground network. It suggests that the best way to know someone isn't to scroll through their feed, but to reach out, touch hands, and let our worlds mix.

In short: Don't just scroll. Connect. Share. And watch your world bloom.

Technical Summary

Here is a detailed technical summary of the paper "Entangling Like Mycorrhizae: Mixing Realities Through Touch in 'FungiSync'."

1. Problem Statement

The paper addresses two converging issues in contemporary society and technology:

• Digital Individualism & Filter Bubbles: Modern digital ecosystems (social media, algorithmic feeds) create isolated "digital Umwelten" (perceptual worlds) where users inhabit personalized realities that are opaque to others. This reinforces "posthuman individualism," where technology isolates users even while connecting them.
• Abstract Ecological Interdependence: While the concept of mycorrhizal networks (the "wood-wide web")—where fungi connect plant roots to exchange resources—is scientifically understood, it remains an abstract, invisible ecological phenomenon. There is a lack of embodied, visceral ways for humans to experience the feeling of symbiotic interdependence and resource sharing.

The core challenge is to design a Mixed Reality (MR) system that translates the biological mechanism of mycorrhizal exchange into a tangible, somatic human experience, thereby critiquing digital isolation and offering an alternative "fungal epistemic" (a way of knowing based on relationality).

2. Methodology & System Design

The authors developed FungiSync, a multi-user, co-located MR participatory ritual grounded in Somaesthetics (cultivating bodily awareness) and Ritual Theory.

Hardware Setup

• Device: The system utilizes HoloKit X, an open-source, smartphone-based optical see-through headset that transforms an iPhone into an affordable AR device.
• Custom Interface: Each headset is encased in a custom masquerade-style mask.
  • Aesthetic: Designed to resemble a forest branch with bark texture and mushroom caps, symbolizing the user as a plant colonized by fungi.
  • Ergonomics: Features a one-handed, branch-like handle, allowing the user to hold the mask to their face while keeping the other hand free for physical interaction (touching others).
• Environment: Designed for gallery settings with a central "Substrate Tower" (a charging dock/sculpture) where participants pick up and return masks.

Software & Interaction Logic

• Perceptual Worlds (Umwelten):
  • Each participant is assigned a unique, audio-reactive "cyberdelic" AR overlay representing a specific plant resource (e.g., nitrogen, phosphorus, sugar, water).
  • Visuals are generated using Unity's Visual Effect Graph and custom shaders.
  • Audio Reactivity: Microphone input drives visual parameters, creating a baseline interdependence where sound ripples through all users' views before physical contact occurs.
  • Spatial Mapping: The iPhone's LiDAR sensor generates real-time 3D meshes for occlusion, ensuring virtual elements appear to grow on physical surfaces.
• The "Touch" Mechanism (Mycorrhizal Exchange):
  • Detection: Using Apple ARKit's Semantic Person Segmentation, the system tracks hand positions. A connection is triggered when two hands are within ~10cm.
  • Entanglement: Upon touch, the distinct AR overlays begin to "leak" and merge. Visual elements from one user's Umwelt render in the other's view.
  • Gradual Blending: The mixing is asymmetric and gradual. The longer the touch, the more vivid and widespread the exchange.
  • Decay: When hands separate, the transferred elements fade over ~30 seconds, modeling the metabolic consumption of resources in nature.
• Network Synchronization: The system aligns spatial poses of all local devices in real-time (based on Hu et al.'s framework), allowing up to six concurrent participants to share a unified digital space.

3. Key Contributions

1. MR Art Performance System: A novel system that embodies mycorrhizal relationality through a multi-user somatic touch ritual. It moves beyond visualizing data to creating a "felt symbiosis" where physical touch acts as the catalyst for perceptual entanglement.
2. Ritual Performance for "Fungal Epistemics": A design framework that investigates how distinct "digital Umwelten" can become entangled without homogenizing. It proposes a "more-than-human" alternative to digital individualism, where diversity is preserved but made mutually consequential through contact.
3. Theoretical Integration: Successfully bridges Somaesthetics, Ritual Theory, and Fungal Epistemics (Bayley, 2025) to critique the accelerated individualism of the posthuman era.

4. Results & Evaluation

The system was deployed as a commissioned artwork in a public gallery setting, attracting a diverse audience (artists, scientists, ecologists).

• Visceral Understanding: Post-experience interviews indicated that participants gained a "visceral understanding" of mycorrhizal resource balancing, moving beyond intellectual knowledge to embodied feeling.
• Behavioral Shifts: Participants actively experimented with the system, creatively using different body parts to touch and explore the "leaking" of realities. This playful exploration aligned with soma design principles of non-dualism (blurring self/other boundaries).
• Social Dynamics: The presence of a large screen mirroring all perspectives encouraged intentional performance and heightened the ritualistic quality of the interaction.
• Qualitative Feedback: Participants described the experience as a form of "underground socialism," resonating with the concept of decentralized, fluid networks where boundaries between "you" and "I" blur to allow mutual affect.

5. Significance

• Critique of Digital Isolation: FungiSync offers a counter-narrative to the "filter bubble" and algorithmic personalization. Instead of retreating into isolated, optimized realities, it demonstrates a technological future where digital systems reward connection across difference.
• New Mode of Knowing: It validates embodied ritual as a legitimate method for accessing "fungal epistemics"—a way of knowing based on relationality and mutual aid rather than individual optimization.
• Design Paradigm: The work establishes a precedent for using intercorporeal design in XR, where the physical body and touch are not just input mechanisms but the primary medium for negotiating shared reality and ethical orientation.
• Ecological Awareness: By making the invisible "wood-wide web" visible and tangible, it fosters a deeper ethical orientation toward multispecies interdependence, suggesting that technology can be used to cultivate ecological empathy rather than just efficiency.