Liquid Strata
Entangled Others
This digital-physical installation emerges from collaboration with oceanographer Joan Llort, exploring the hidden world of 'marine snow' (organic particles from zooplankton waste and decomposing matter that drift endlessly toward the ocean floor). This continuous microscopic blizzard occurs globally yet remains largely invisible to direct observation, known only through scattered data fragments and sparse recordings. The work translates this elusive phenomenon into an artificial life simulation, offering viewers a voyeuristic glimpse into the ocean's twilight zone.
Rather than presenting a seamless scientific visualisation, the installation deliberately fragments itself across digital and physical elements, mirroring how we actually comprehend marine snow: through incomplete glimpses and partial understanding. The simulation models complex biodiversity patterns derived from observational research, creating dynamic representations of this unseen ecosystem. Daphne Xanthopoulou's sonic composition weaves through the installation, transforming scientific data into audible landscapes that accompany the visual elements.
Together, these components construct an experiential portal into marine snow's paradoxical nature: simultaneously abundant and invisible, vital and ephemeral. The installation's fragmented approach reflects the patchwork quality of scientific knowledge itself, where understanding emerges not from complete pictures but from assembled pieces of evidence. Viewers encounter both the phenomenon's sublime beauty and the methodological challenges of studying something so vast yet microscopically small, creating contemplation about the limits of human perception and the poetry found within scientific inquiry.
Project Collaborators:
Entangled Others is the duo practice of Feileacan Kirkbride McCormick (NO) and Sofia Crespo (AR). Other partners/collaborators for this work: Sonic composition by Daphne Xanthopoulou. This work has been possible thanks to Ajuts Joan Oró of the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation, and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe. With the collaboration of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, AZTI Summer Project Horizon 2020 and Advanced Music, S.L. Sonar+D 2024. Special thanks to curator Lluís Nacenta, producer Victoria Sacco, and technical producer Pense.
