Dramatic capture by David Rosenblum of ‘Mushroom Cloud’ at South Pointe Pier! ✨ I created an animated AR artwork of a mushroom cloud over the ocean to underscore both the destruction and fragility of all interdependent ecosystems, and to signal human responsibility. As a destabilized ocean stealthily encroaches on all coastlines, the mushroom cloud by contrast arguably remains the most recognizable symbol of man-made cataclysm. Our extractive disrespect for nature has turned nature against us, and we are unprepared for its impact. I’m considering the aftermath. How might we survive our imperiled future without coordinated leadership? And if current models are failing to produce that leadership, where should we turn? I have summoned the decentralized and equitable model of mycelium once before, in a recent AR monument geolocated over Los Angeles City Hall, imagining a new civic accountability rooted in efficient regeneration and community care. In Mushroom Cloud, I want to extend this dialogue into the threat of extinction—a morbid subject of increasing urgency. This project invites direct action in the form of NFT video captures of the original AR asset, related sculptural objects or “nodes”, and purely digital images of abstract spores. Each represents a stage of engagement and participation in a newly imagined system of accountability. In collaboration with art attorney @scodenkirk, the NFT project includes a web 3-friendly “network blueprint” authored by Sarah, which invites the collector into the project as a network builder, seeding regenerative networks of care by (for example) considering gifting one or more of the “node” sculptures to a person or people to whom one is deeply connected. By blanketing the sky with this poetics of interconnectedness, I invite viewers to perceive a multi-nodal, communal, often invisible cloud—one that might privilege interdependence and generosity. With reconceived accountabilities, perhaps we could prompt a productive balance of grief and hope, shattering and coalescing, and decomposition and rebirth. -Nancy Baker Cahill