“AquA(l)formings – Interweaving the Subaqueous” by Robertina Šebjanič, Sofia Crespo, Feileacan McCormick

Title:

AquA(l)formings – Interweaving the Subaqueous

Artist(s) and People Involved:

Filmmaker, Video Artist, or Animator(s):

Symposium:

ISEA2022: 27th International Symposium on Electronic Art

Venue(s):

Santa Mònica , Barcelona , Spain

Medium:

video

Duration:

5:00

Artist Statement:

The AquA(l)formings project addresses the possibility of an empathic human relationship to more-than-human entities, drawing on Donna Haraway’s notion of “tentacular thinking” as the ability to perceive the world through empathizing with more-than-human entities.
The project explores changes in the marine environment caused by human presence and tries to imagine how the new conditions (rising sea levels and water temperatures, new chemical composition, etc.) affect its inhabitants. Seas and oceans record such environmental changes as memories, either in individual organisms or as distinct shifts in ecosystem structures.

AquA(l)formings is a multilayered installation exploring “aquatic sensing.” The physical (biomaterial sculpture) and digital (audio, video AI models that interact with sensory data) form a tangible experience of changing conditions in the coastal environments.

The artists trace “threads” of the noble pen shell (Pinna nobilis), a marine inhabitant that has always aroused the curiosity of scientists and others involved with the sea, and use it as a visual synonym for the more-than-human entities. Today, however, the noble pen shell has succumbed to disease caused by environmental changes in the Mediterranean. The use of AI technologies helps visualize the past and the future of the noble pen shell, and the vast underwater meadows of the Posidonia oceanica seagrass in the northern Adriatic Sea.

By presenting its story, the artists help to initiate research to explore the use and improvement of new biological materials that would not threaten the existence or habitat of certain organisms.