Beijing Mushroom

A man editing a mushroom model in a hotel room finds his computer coming to life and working on its own. At the same time, a mushroom installation starts growing somewhere in the city. He falls asleep, unsure whether what happened was a dream or reality. The next morning the computer has ordered takeout for him, and a USB stick in the bag holds “fertilizer”. Once he plugs it in, the mushroom in his editor grows faster and faster, and so do the mushrooms in the city.

I handled the film’s digital interactive elements and sound design. The film experiments with split screen and Unity as filmmaking tools. Director Dong Jie brings virtual models and physical spaces into the same frame, allowing each to generate the other.