In 1995, the artist Francis Alÿs walked around São Paulo carrying a can of blue paint with a hole punched in the bottom. Over many days, as he moved through the city, a continuous stream of paint dribbled onto the ground in a trail behind him. The line of blue paint made a map of his journey, a portrait of time. Alÿs’s performance illustrates hyphal growth. Alÿs himself is the growing tip. The winding trail he leaves behind him is the body of the hypha.
