MARINE BIOLOGY RESIDENCY

The ATRIA project has grown out of the an artist residency I am currently carrying out with the Marine Biology and Ecology research group, University of Plymouth.

The production of this artwork involves collaboration between myself, Simon Rundle, David Strang and Oliver Tills. The work will be premiered during science week (11th – 15th March 2011) as part of the Festival of Science organised by UoP.

The ATRIA project takes as its starting point extraordinary high resolution imagery of heart development in molluscan embryos produced at UoP. Through analysis of these images using the software programme ‘optic flow’ the visual material provides data that we will then convert into sound. It is this heartbeat sound we will play throughout the atrium of the Portland Square building, Plymouth, using a system of 56 speakers. The artwork will link scientific interest in the functional aspect of the heart with metaphor through setting up analogies between building and bodies.