Five expeditionary post-Anthropocene survivors display social behavior and conduct a leisurely patrol of their toxic habitat. As the alpha directly confronts our interloper’s gaze with its own unblinking, compound eye, our weakness becomes glaringly obvious. In a sea where the balance has tipped in favor of industrially fertilized nitro-phosphoric acid, this is perilous for anything except these gene-drive-enabled CRISPR-ed critters. We don’t know: how they escaped from the research facility, how a glitch in their genomes provides the longevity of hexactinellid sponges (living for thousands of years), how they evolved to metabolize microplastics and 3D print their shells to be impervious to the surrounding acid, or how they evolved to live as now-extinct corals did, symbiotically nourished by algae living inside their eyes, but clearly they have unique advantages to adapt and thrive in seawater that would strip the paint off the hull of our ship.
…After & Before (2016)
single channel HD video
2’47
Screening history:
The Wrong Water in The Wrong Biennial 2017; School of the Art Institute of Chicago 2017; Galerie Royal München DE 2017; Forårsudstilling Kunsthal Charlottenborg Copenhagen DK 2017; Ear Taxi Festival Harris Theater Chicago USA 2016; Moving Minds Glyndwr University Wrexham UK 2016; siva)(zona Korcula HR 2015
And presented as a touring video still in:
The Universal Sea: Abu Dhabi Station, Top 100, Abu Dhabi art fair, Center for Contemporary Art, Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Hwy, Saadiyat Cultural District, Abu Dhabi, UAE, [11-17 November 2018]
The Universal Sea: Pure or Plastic? Festival, Top 100, HybridArt Space, Budapest HU, [4-30 October 2018]
The Universal Sea Station 6 (hosted by Entrepreneurship Summit), Top 100, , Henry-Ford-Bau, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin DE, [6-7 October 2018]
The Universal Sea Station 5 (hosted by Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona),Top 100, , Barcelona ES, [13-14 September 2018]
The Universal Sea Station 4 (hosted by UNESCO Palazzo Zorzi), Top 100, , Venice IT, [20-21 September 2018]
The Universal Sea Station 3 (hosted by We Make The City Festival), Top 100, , Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam, Amsterdam NL, [18-29 June 2018]
The Universal Sea Station 2 (hosted by Doku.Tech Festival), Top 100, , Termokiss, Pristina XK, [9-10 June 2018]
The Universal Sea Station 1, Top 100, , Aalto University Design Factory, Helsinki FI, [5-6 June 2018]
The Universal Sea: Pure or Plastic? Project, Top 100, , Centrum Rzeźby Polskiej, Orońsku PL, [22 April-8 June 2018]