Living Probes in Place: Exploring More-Than-Human Care Through Mycoremediation
This is a thoughtful CHI paper because it does more than showcase a novel bio-material: it uses mycoremediation as a probe for rethinking more-than-human care as place-based rather than dyadic. The contribution is strongest as an empirical and conceptual reframing, with clear limits from the short study and participant pool.
Axes Lens
Rare contribution shape, typical evidence profile. The point here is not a score. It is to show what kind of claim the paper makes, and whether the evidence pattern is unusual or baseline in this 268 -review set.
Contribution shape
- Knowledge form
- descriptive knowledge typical · 92/268
- Novelty type
- empirical finding typical · 68/268
- Abstraction level
- practice typical · 85/268
- Generalization target
- field argument typical · 55/268
- Validation mode
- qualitative study typical · 63/268
Evidence profile
- Evidence strength
- moderate typical · 105/268
- Claim alignment
- medium typical · 32/268
- Overclaim risk
- medium typical · 210/268
Review Summary
The paper’s main value is not that mycoremediation is technically new as a remediation approach, but that it is mobilized as a living probe for studying how care practices unfold in relation to place. That is a meaningful CHI move: it turns a biological process into an HCI inquiry about situated attention, stewardship, and ecological relation. The abstract already signals the conceptual shift from a dyadic model to a place-based ecological model, and the study design supports that framing by asking participants to place and care for a living mycelium composite in a place of their choosing. For CHI, this is a credible and interesting contribution because it links an embodied, temporal, and materially constrained artifact to a broader argument about more-than-human care. At the same time, the evidence is bounded. The study is short, the sample is small, and the participant pool appears relatively homogeneous and transient, so the paper should be read as an exploratory qualitative account rather than a general theory of care. The strongest claim is therefore the empirical and conceptual reframing: mycoremediation can function as a situated practice through which people notice multispecies ecologies and reorient toward place. The paper is less convincing if read as establishing broad generalizable effects. Overall, this is a solid honorable-mention-level contribution because it combines an evocative artifact, a clear field-facing argument, and a plausible qualitative basis, while remaining appropriately cautious about duration and generalization.
What Changed
Canon before
More-than-human care in HCI is often framed around dyadic relations with a single nonhuman species or artifact; this paper shifts attention to place as a co-constitutive ecological context.
Departure from common sense
The paper argues that care in more-than-human contexts should not be treated as a dyadic interaction between a caregiver and a single nonhuman receiver, but instead as something situated in and co-constituted by place.
Actual novelty
It presents mycoremediation as a situated more-than-human care practice via a living probe study, claiming an empirical account of mycoremediation as place-based MTH care rather than only a remediation technique. The novelty is less about inventing mycoremediation itself and more about reframing it as an HCI method and empirical lens for studying how care, stewardship, and ecological noticing emerge through repeated visits, partial legibility, and place-specific relations over time.
Evidence
The paper’s core evidence is a two-week living probe study with 12 participants who placed and cared for a living mycelium composite in places of their choosing. The abstract, findings, discussion, and conclusion consistently report a shift from dyadic expectations toward place-based ecological attention, while the limitations section explicitly notes the short duration and the need for longer, community-based work.
“ Our contribution to the ongoing HCI research is twofold: 1) an empirical account of mycoremediation as a situated MTH care practice, and 2) discussion on design implications for living artifacts that foster affective, place-based connections with MTH worlds”
actual novelty · Abstract · confidence 0.55
“ntered design to more-than-human (MTH) care. Current MTH care often focuses on singular species, overlooking the role of the place in which these care relations are situated”
departure from common sense · Abstract · confidence 0.60
“ Another limitation was time-related, as participants had only two weeks to think about and look for a place, place the living probe, and let a practice eme”
limitation · Section 6 Limitations and Future Work · confidence 0.78
“ We present findings from a two-week living probe study where participants (N=12) placed and cared for a living mycelium composite in a place of their choosing”
validation scope · Abstract · confidence 0.70
Limits
Method limits
The study duration was only two weeks, which constrains how much a durable place-based care practice could emerge and limits observation of longer-term change. The participant pool was also largely homogeneous, consisting of master’s students in one department, which narrows the range of perspectives and lived experience available to the analysis.
Deployment limits
The findings are grounded in a small, likely non-representative participant pool and a specific living-probe/mycelium setup, so transfer to other communities, places, or living materials remains uncertain. The paper’s own framing suggests that the intervention works best as an exploratory probe rather than a ready-made design solution for broad deployment.
Boundary conditions
The authors indicate that participants had limited time to find a place, place the probe, and let a practice emerge; they also call for longitudinal studies and community-based participants, suggesting the claims are bounded by short duration, outsider relationships to place, and the specific mycelium composite used in the study.
Position in field
This sits in Bio-HCI and more-than-human HCI as a situated, practice-oriented contribution that reframes living artifacts from dyadic interaction objects toward place-based ecological relations. It is strongest as a field-facing conceptual and empirical reframing rather than as a technical advance in mycoremediation itself.