island MEDIUM is pleased to announce the solo exhibition by Shingo Aruga " Slime mold Process ". Looking forward to seeing you at the venue.

[Artist's note] Many of you may have heard about the slime mold that gets through the maze. In that experiment, physarum polycephalum, a kind of myxomycete (slime mold), was forced to get through it when it was in a state of slime, that is, a deformed condition. The experimenter made use of its transfer process it undergoes when it feeds. Physarum polycephalum has the property of mutating into a form that allows it to shorten the distance between one feed and another. It slowly spreads its body out like a fan, in a two-dimensional way rather than connecting the two parts in a shortest way. When an edge of its body touches feed by chance, other parts of the body shrinks as if to strengthen the part that reached it, and the body connects one feed and another in the shortest way in the end. I’ve decided to call the property of physarum polycephalum Slime mold Process, and apply it to my artwork and myself. Physarum polycephalum, though temporary it is, creates effective network with its own body. The important part is that it goes through a process that includes uncertainty instead of heading directly for effectiveness. Plus, I think it is suggestive that it has to expose itself to uncertainty once again to feed when it runs out of feed or feed goes bad