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Juiyi Yen, National Taiwan University of Arts, TaiwanAbstract
This study introduces BitMorph, a project-based workshop exploring how living biological materials—kombucha membranes, mycelium, and medicinal herbs—function as non-linguistic agents in contemporary creative practices. We investigate how post-textual reading and cross-sensory experiences emerge through interaction with nonhuman materials, asking: Can living materials act as symbolic surrogates in contemporary image-making, developing sensory and temporal grammar beyond language? Grounded in theoretical frameworks by Ingold, Barad, and Drucker, BitMorph reframes material instability as a generative site for perceptual activation and creative transformation. The workshop was conducted over six weeks with eighteen graduate creative practitioners, guiding participants through microbial cultivation, fermentation-based image generation, scent-based storytelling, and agar/mycelium semiotic exploration. Participants embraced slowness, failure, and emergent transformation as integral to their process. Three projects are analyzed: (1) Expiring Image Brewing (cyanotype-kombucha hybrids dissolving visual permanence); (2) Herbarium (scent-activated herbal bioplastic book reconstructing cultural memory); and (3) Temporal Stamps (mycelium/agar stamps embedding rhythm and temporality). Findings suggest that by shifting from author to listener, participants formed post-textual sensory grammar rooted in environmental response, somatic awareness, and time-based transformation. Microbial matter functions as a symbolic system, displacing linguistic centrality and fostering new meaning-making modes in visual cultural production. BitMorph contributes to contemporary visual culture discourse by positioning living materials as perceptual mediators and agents of symbolic disruption.
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