Event 2: Noise Aquarium

This week, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend Professor Vesna’s own exhibit called “Noise Aquarium.” The purpose of the exhibit was to demonstrate the effects of both noise and human pollution on the very base of the food chain in the ocean: plankton. The primary focus of the exhibit is to showcase the effects of microplastics and general human presence on the ecosystem, especially marine life.

The actual projection of the plankton

The exhibit utilizes 3-D scans of certain species of plankton that are then projected as large as whales (although our version was a bit smaller due to space constraints). The viewer stands on a special platform that detects weight movements while he or she is standing on top of it to mimic the disruption the presence of the person causes on the environment. The purpose of the weight board is to move in such a way that is conducive to the plankton moving towards the center of the screen. If one is successful in moving the plankton to the middle, a whale sound plays, which, in Professor Vesna’s words, is the whale “thanking” you for supporting the food chain, but if you are unsuccessful a horrid fracking or sonar sound is played to represent disruption.

The platform participants stand on

Personally, I thought the exhibit was a perfect way to tie together the themes we have been exploring throughout the class so far where technology and art overlap in one of my favorite forms: art that provides social commentary. The use of devices like 3-D scanners, computer modeling, and sophisticated audio engineering comes together to create a unique artistic experience. The work of art also captures one of the key issues of our time, climate change, in a way that forces the viewer to be immersed in the exhibit and must take responsibility for the success or failure of the plankton mirroring how people must take action and responsibility to save the planet. We have been learning about how people are using MRI machines and gene editing to create works of art, but to see our own professor use technologies that I wouldn’t associate with art, like 3-D biological scanning and audio engineering, to produce such an immersive artistic experience really tied everything together. It was a great experience that captured the new technological age of art.

Me at the exhibit