Beneath the Sea

I have come across these sculptures numerous times and i think they're amazing.  Jason De Caires Taylor created an underwater sculpture park in Grenada West Indies. This goes to show that the location of an artwork realy is very important, as being underwater gives these sculptures a whole knew dimension.  The landscape of the sea floor constantly shifts as parts of the sculptures are revealed and hidden always changing them.  I particularly love the way that these forms (being forms of people) become home to many living things and become inhabited giving the sense of the closest connection we could have to nature and other living beings.  It also shows how nature will take back anything that man makes...

Cordyceps

In the talk from Paul Stamets about mushrooms saving the planet he talks about fungi that infects a host such as an ant and uses its body as a growing ground so it can spore. I found this video of Planet Earth with David Attenbourgh about the Cordyceps fungi that do this and found it really interesting staying along the lines of the way nature overcomes anything really.

Largest Organism in the World.

I came across in my research the giant Armillaria Ostoyae fungus.  Most people believe that the blue whale is the largest organism on earth but infact it is the Armillaria as it covers 2,384 acres of land in eastern Oregon.  Although the most interesting part about the Armillaria for me is the fact that on the surface it looks like any ordinary mushroom but it is underneath the ground that the giant fungus's network spreads and feeds off the roots of trees excreting a digestive enzyme.  It is a good example of how powerfull nature can be without us knowing it as we only found it in 1998.  I like the sense of it growing and thriving and taking over the underground roots and become a part of it. Here, Paul Stamets gives a talk on how this mushroom and others can save the world through pesticides, treating smallpox and cleaning poluted soil etc.

http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world.html

The Cycle of Life and Death

Whilst exploring my general subject i began thinking about the various "cycles" in life and started with the obvious - 

Life and Death

Death is generaly feared and thought of very negatively.  Although with death comes life because we kill to eat, survive and ,in death, something fuels life.  The same applies to dying vegitation which then decomposes and aids the soil.  So with all these ideas of life and death floating around my head I remembered watching a documentary on channel 4, (you can also watch it here http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-elephant-life-after-death) about how the corpse of an elephant provides food etc. for so many animals. The programme was called
                       "The Elephant: Life after Death"
                          
It's a really interesting documentary that started out just like any ordinary informative show with the usual plain facts about elephants like that a five-ton elephant amounts to “six million calories of meat, fat and guts.  I certainly didnt know that, so it had already done its job to be fair.  Although as it delved deeper and longer into the time the elaphant had been dead things started to get truely bizarre such as a hyena feasting on the elephants anus. Its amazing to see just exactly happened to the corpse because it's something, well i personaly, wouldn't think twice of yet theres a whole world of life that feeds off one elephant that has lost it's life.