THE HOUSE AT THE END OF THE WORLD
the house
At the End of the World,
What makes a house a living being?
What gives a home life and agency?
Is it the presence of people?
Or the warmth of the fireplace, breathing life through the space?
Or is it the absence of people and the energy they bring?
Is it the coldness of the walls and the rot beneath the floors?
Is it the prickling steps and slithering bodies of insects and spiders buried within the walls?
Or is it the sprouting mold and spores of unforgiving fungi that creep along the walls?
What gives the house consciousness?
Its sentience?
Its vitality?
“The House at the End of the World” explores these questions of presence and absence, life and vitality, and investigates the relationship between the house and the fungal growth. Titled after anthropologist Anna Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World, this piece draws inspiration from known and obscure media that also interrogates the concepts of sentience, animism, anger, punishment, and consciousness: Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, Kittyhorrorshow’s “Anatomy,” The Book of Leviticus’s leprosy house, the political theories of Jane Bennet, and others.
The essence of consciousness is created through dichotomies and parallels, linking the mycelium network to spiritual possession, commodifying the presence of mushrooms, and molding them to the growing actuality of the house’s awareness. My poetry takes on the perspective of the house itself, with the physical journal mirroring the progress of the fungal takeover. Every word encapsulates the inner conflicts of the home’s survival and mental strife as it grapples with its own abandonment and neglect. The house is designed to speak to you, through you, and merge your consciousness with its own. Thinking of the home as a body that functions like yours and mine, with flesh and blood, organic matter and anatomy, adds another layer of being to the home that conjures the pathos of the humanity that abandoned it. And formed through the company of grief also exists the physical decay and growing sentience of the house, a full amalgamation of presence within absence and the limitations of agency.
I have entitled this as fungal possession.
What gives a home life and agency?
Is it the presence of people?
Or the warmth of the fireplace, breathing life through the space?
Or is it the absence of people and the energy they bring?
Is it the coldness of the walls and the rot beneath the floors?
Is it the prickling steps and slithering bodies of insects and spiders buried within the walls?
Or is it the sprouting mold and spores of unforgiving fungi that creep along the walls?
What gives the house consciousness?
Its sentience?
Its vitality?
“The House at the End of the World” explores these questions of presence and absence, life and vitality, and investigates the relationship between the house and the fungal growth. Titled after anthropologist Anna Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World, this piece draws inspiration from known and obscure media that also interrogates the concepts of sentience, animism, anger, punishment, and consciousness: Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, Kittyhorrorshow’s “Anatomy,” The Book of Leviticus’s leprosy house, the political theories of Jane Bennet, and others.
The essence of consciousness is created through dichotomies and parallels, linking the mycelium network to spiritual possession, commodifying the presence of mushrooms, and molding them to the growing actuality of the house’s awareness. My poetry takes on the perspective of the house itself, with the physical journal mirroring the progress of the fungal takeover. Every word encapsulates the inner conflicts of the home’s survival and mental strife as it grapples with its own abandonment and neglect. The house is designed to speak to you, through you, and merge your consciousness with its own. Thinking of the home as a body that functions like yours and mine, with flesh and blood, organic matter and anatomy, adds another layer of being to the home that conjures the pathos of the humanity that abandoned it. And formed through the company of grief also exists the physical decay and growing sentience of the house, a full amalgamation of presence within absence and the limitations of agency.
I have entitled this as fungal possession.
Poem
The House at the End of the World
2 ft. x 18 1/2 in. x 2 ft.
Doll house, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish
The House at the End of the World (house), May 1, 2023
2 ft. x 18 1/2 in. x 2 ft.
Doll house, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish
2 ft. x 18 1/2 in. x 2 ft.
Doll house, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish
The House at the End of the World (house), May 1, 2023
2 ft. x 18 1/2 in. x 2 ft.
Doll house, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish
2 ft. x 18 1/2 in. x 2 ft.
Doll house, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish
The House at the End of the World (house), May 1, 2023
2 ft. x 18 1/2 in. x 2 ft.
Doll house, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish
2 ft. x 18 1/2 in. x 2 ft.
Doll house, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish
The House at the End of the World (house), May 1, 2023
2 ft. x 18 1/2 in. x 2 ft.
Doll house, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish
2 ft. x 18 1/2 in. x 2 ft.
Doll house, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish
The House at the End of the World, (house) May 1, 2023
2 ft. x 18 1/2 in. x 2 ft.
Doll house, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish
2 ft. x 18 1/2 in. x 2 ft.
Doll house, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish
The House at the End of the World (house), May 1, 2023
2 ft. x 18 1/2 in. x 2 ft.
Doll house, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish
2 ft. x 18 1/2 in. x 2 ft.
Doll house, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish
The House at the End of the World (house), May 1, 2023
2 ft. x 18 1/2 in. x 2 ft.
Doll house, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish
2 ft. x 18 1/2 in. x 2 ft.
Doll house, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish
2 ft. x 18 1/2 in. x 2 ft.
Doll house, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish
38 x 19 in.
Burnt butcher paper, cheesecloth, ink, fake blood, coffee (liquid)
The House at the End of the World ~ possession (poetry journal), May 1, 2023
Journal, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish, paper, etc.
Journal, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish, paper, etc.
The House at the End of the World ~ possession (poetry journal), May 1, 2023
Journal, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish, paper, etc
Journal, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish, paper, etc
The House at the End of the World ~ possession (poetry journal), May 1, 2023
Journal, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish, paper, etc.
Journal, acrylic paint, ink, air-dry clay, cardboard, tissue, ground coffee, lace paper, gloss medium, clear nail polish, paper, etc.
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