we are all in the same boat an interactive, biomimetic installation Max Lever, Rayyan Mikati, Sarah Babski, and Tracey Lum
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(photography)
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project description This project is an interactive installation which mimics a portion of the intertidal ecosystem. Our project consists of: an 11 second video loop resin barnacles that sense human presence and react to visitors a hand–made fishing net which incorporates LED lights woven in to symbolize the plankton population, which reacts to the barnacles’ behavior a set of informative postcards, which include watercolor illustrations
In this interdisciplinary project we hope to illustrate two main concepts: First, that no creature on this planet, including human beings, is isolated. We interact with the barnacles in this installation, but we also see that the plankton are affected dramatically just by our presence, though it is indirect. Similarly, no discipline is isolated from another. What develops in the arts influences the sciences; what develops in politics influences computer science; and so forth.
room layout
postcards
plankton plankton is a catch–all term for small organisms
absorbs more carbon, it becomes more acidic,
that float through the current. it isn’t the
and my potentially become inhabitable to many
name of a particular species, or even a family
organisms– including plankton.
or genus. any organism that’s small enough to be completely at the whim of the waves is considered plankton. plankton are an extremely important part of the world’s ecosystem. copepods, a crustacean zooplankton, are projected to be the most populous multi–celled organism on earth. they are the main food staple of everything from coral to whales. if copepods were to disappear, so would all life in the ocean– and then perhaps the rest of the world. they’re not just a food source, either. plankton– and copepods in particular– are responsible for the world’s most important carbon sink. this means that plankton take carbon dioxide out of the air and drag it into the ocean, which makes our atmosphere healthier to breathe. plankton remove about 2 billion tons of carbon every year. however, human emissions of carbon dioxide increase, we reduce their impact: as the ocean
plankton are very, very small– and they impact literally every organism on planet earth– including human beings.
we are all in the same boat
plankton
barnacles barnacles are unusual creatures. early in
when frightened, in this case by a human viewer,
their development, they are among the ranks
the barnacles retract their legs into their shells
of plankton, floating through the ocean as
to protect them from harm. in nature, barnacles
nauplius. after spending their childhood
are preyed upon by whelks (snails tha are able to
growing, they develop into their second larval
grind through their shells) and some starfish.
stage: the cyprid. in this stage, the barnacle doesn’t feed: it floats around, searching for the place it will stay for the rest of its life. when a suitable place is found, the barnacle enters adulthood by cementing its back to a rough surface and secreting a hard material around its fleshy body. though sessile and shelled, like oysters or mussels, barnacles are actually arthropods. that means they’re closer related to lobsters or insects than any clam–like organism. the fuzzy fan that portrudes out of their shell, cirri, are actually their legs. they pop out, waving their through the water to catch a meal of plankton. they draw the plankton back into their shell and into their mouth.
we are all in the same boat
barnacles
we are all in the same boat
trophic cascades a trophic cascade describes the interaction of
in either scenario, the pendulum of population
predator and prey, as a food chain would, but
size will swing the other way, eventually–
also describes indirect interactions between
assuming that each change isn’t so dramatic that
several layers of the food chain.
the other population cannot recover.
in nature, whelks (a type of snail) eat barnacles. barnacles eat plankton. plankton are prey, barnacles are their predators, and whelks are the barnacles’ predators. however, even though the whelks and plankton never directly interact– whelks do not eat plankton– their presence (or absence) still affects the other. let’s say for example, that the whelk population suddenly drops. without whelks to frighten barnacles into hiding or reduce the barnacle population, the barnacles suddenly have free reign to eat as many plankton as they’d like. the plankton population would drop. alternatively, consider a seasonal spike in plankton population. as the plankton population goes up, a larger barnacle population may be supported. with more barnacles to feed on, the whelk population may also grow.
we are all in the same boat
trophic cascades
we are all in the same boat
installation photos