RIV Artworks Overview

Ocean Connections

In visual representations, oceans are often shown as blue, empty fields or voids. Ocean Connections aims to instil these unseen spaces with stories and movement, to discover a kinship to life in the oceans. 

The project investigates processes within ecosystems which are influenced by ocean flows. Whilst focusing specifically on the Oslofjord environment in Norway, the title Ocean Connections points to interconnectedness of all oceans. We cannot really tell where the Oslofjord ends, as it runs into Skagerrak and joins the North Sea which then flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Employing a combined means of storytelling, the work aims for an immersive, circular experience of biodiversity and ecological connections on a global scale. 

The resulting artwork is a two-channel video installation, formulated and constructed from an experimental scientific and artistic dialogue and mode of collaboration, combining mathematical modelling, scientific data about ocean movements and ecological conditions, and artistic storytelling through animation and visuality.

Invisible Seeds

Invisible Seeds presents an embroidered and painted textile by the Shipibo-Conibo artists’ community. Produced mostly by women, Shipibo art represents an entire system of communication with plants and plant life. The work focuses on the complex systems of planting, harvesting, and treating agricultural products that sustain life in the Amazon. Thus addressing the relationships between territory, human beings, non-human forms, and the spiritual worlds. 

The project served to develop a model of dialogue and co-responsibility in the decision-making processes between the artists involved and the Shipibo-Conibo artists in the Amazon, and a biodiversity expert from the Joint Research Centre. The piece proposes the recognition of indigenous contributions to the sustainability of food systems. It accompanies the struggles of the Shipibo people who claim the preservation and respect of their ancestral knowledge. They demand urgent actions to prevent the destruction of the Amazon and better living conditions for indigenous peoples in Peru and everywhere.

With Salt and Rocks in Our Veins

This project considers the entangled rights for water, between nature and humans, through the entry point of contested water in the Atacama desert. Once an ancient seabed and now a site of saline water mining for lithium extraction, this remote desert site with its unique salt water dependent ecosystem is intimately entangled with the push for a lithium-focused energy transition away from fossil fuels and necessary response to anthropogenic climate change. 

The artwork generates digital twins of two remote natural saline lagoons in the Atacama desert, using drones, photogrammetry and gaming engine visualisation. These are linked in real-time with an automated web search for terms associated with green energy policies and lithium-led energy transitions. The landscapes decay over time as digital water levels deplete incrementally with each web hit. 

In collapsing the distance between these remote, unique desert saline waterbodies, and the centres of global north’s political and economic power, the work visualises- through a contemporary digital take on the Euro-historic visual art modality of ‘landscape’- a water-led speculative storytelling of cause to effect; of a passage from complexity to complexity.

The amount of lithium contained in technology used for this project has been estimated. The amount of brine ground water required to water-mine this amount of lithium has been calculated at between 80 and 400,000 L brine water. The wide range reflects the paucity of open data on brine water extraction in the Atacama. See https://danwatch.dk/en/undersoegelse/how-much-water-is-used-to-make-the-worlds-batteries/ .

The Tipping Point

The Tipping Point is a data driven light and sound kinetic installation of 24 custom metronomes and a video projection. The artwork highlights the urgency and the increased risk that one or several tipping elements in the climate system might cross a critical threshold, with severe consequences for global climate, ecosystems and human societies. 

The metronomes move, driven by sets of past, present and projected future, environmental data linked to five major climate tipping points. The temporal journey through data is reflected by the metronomes' tempo, as the beats intensify over time. A final cacophony reflects the mounting urgency of the climate crisis. Then, all metronomes halt abruptly, and a critical tipping point is reached as the room falls silent. 

The title, The Tipping Point, is singular as it refers to the tipping point that society is approaching. As such, the aim is for visitors to realize that now is the time to take collective action.

Specter[al]s of Nature

Specter[al]s of Nature is an artwork informed by scientific earth observation research on surface water changes. It is the result of speculative cartography inspired by the time maps in the Atlas of Global Surface Water Dynamics, which progresses into 3D water beings with ghostly margins and uncertain boundaries. Rather than being determined solely by the topography and depth of water bodies, Specters of Nature emphasizes the role of time as a third dimension, illustrating how human activities have irreversibly altered these ecosystems. Its primary objective is to stimulate critical thinking about our limited understanding of time and space, which often results in our disconnection from nature and actions that are detrimental to the environment. This project envisions a post-anthropogenic and decolonialized cartography, imaginatively addressing the expansive electromagnetic visual spectrum offered by remote sensing technology and its capacity for long-term documentation. Through the creative amalgamation of composite imagery derived from satellite technology, it presents a vivid depiction of a dynamic, living cartography that encompasses both human and nonhuman ways of seeing. Simultaneously, it compresses temporal changes spanning over four decades, providing a thought-provoking representation of the evolving landscape. In essence, Specter[al]s of Nature invites us to contemplate the intricate relationship between humanity, nature, and time, transcending conventional boundaries and inspiring us to reimagine our ways of mapping the world within the evolving tapestry of existence.

Haunted Waters

Pollution, contamination, forever chemicals…What have we done?! OMG! I need a glass... 

Welcome to the Haunted Waters Bar—a growing collection of contaminated waters. Here, you'll find a menu featuring a variety of water samples from around the world, submitted by activists, scientists, swimmers, citizens, and friends. Some samples come from lakes, rivers, and the sea, while others are filled from the tap. While they may all look similar, each water is haunted by a multitude of ‘spirits’ telling different stories—stories that speak of the past, of decisions made by those in power, of struggles, accidents, wars, greed, and action. 

Chemicals in water are not unlike ghosts – they haunt and alter beings and places, are often invisible to the naked eye, relate to historic injustice, and are trapped in places they were not meant to be. The complexity of chemical cocktails hinders research on their negative impact on health and environment. The destruction of ecosystems and disruption of communities conjures these eerie beings into existence; the spirits have awakened! 

How do we live with haunted waters?

Compos[t]ing

Soil is a source and a destination for many forms of life, and bears witness to the history of the Earth. However, humanity sees a long history of soil exploitation, and contemporary society tends to underestimate the critical role soil plays in fostering the conditions necessary for the existence of life on Earth. 

This tripartite artwork, comprising a physical sculpture, titled Earthbreakers, located in Brussels' Cinquantenaire Park, and two digital twins, responds to this situation. Compos[t]ing presents a thematically broad and chronologically deep view of the soil, whilst Digital Compos[t]ing explores soil formation and transformation processes beyond immediate human perception as they occur over extremely lengthy periods. 

The distinct pieces offer varied perspectives: the physical sculpture grounds itself in tangible earth, inviting tactile engagement, while the digital counterparts transcend human perception, expressing temporal horizons typically imperceptible to the human mind. The knowledge map visualises an interactive text network of undervalued voices and vocabularies on soils from poetic, scientific, and political contexts, expressing the richness within these varied definitions. Together, they form a compelling dialogue, inviting contemplation on the multifaceted nature of soil.

Lament

Lament explores post-wildfire ecology in soil, offering a space where ecological and more-than-human death and grief are dignified and where fires are treated as a phenomenon that belongs to the co-evolution of ecosystems and humans. At the same time, the work engages with current ecological shifts and fractures, encompassing changing fire regimes, vulnerable ecosystems, and their less perceivable but highly relevant interplay with soil. 

Developed over eighteen months of research, the work combines ecological observation, bioart, sculpture, exchange with scientists and independent experts, musical composition, philosophical inquiry and encounters with communities who experienced devastating wildfires. The latter resulting in an emotional fire-scar map. 

Lament features a performance with sounds of cello and burned wood. Onstage are organic elements from a wildfire site and sculptural pieces: hanging glass sculptures containing soil, soil on the floor and a costume made of tree barks. After the performance, these remain as a more-than-human deathbed installation for the exhibition. The audience is invited to notice the tiny changes inside the glass sculptures, which evoke untold stories of soil ecology.

Anthos

Anthos is an immersive, interactive light and sound installation that highlights the importance of pollinators and demonstrates our anthropogenic effect on them. 

The audience enters an immersive space where they can experience the simulation of a plant-pollinator network, based on European biodiversity models. Live data from CO₂, temperature and humidity sensors is projected in the space, and affects the complex system controlling the visualisation. 

The work aims to to uncover potentially hidden secrets about plant-pollinator networks, their functions, and to show how the climate crisis is putting ever more strain on this natural and fragile system.

Politics in Disguise

Is it possible for humans, to envision a politics that transcends the human domain? Within Politics in Disguise, the conventional image of a speaking politician is transformed to embody a mushroom that, through a complex process of translation, delivers a speech that challenges our traditional understanding of governance. As a member of the fungi kingdom, it asserts its capability to represent not only animals but also plants, and even unicellular organisms, more effectively than Homo sapiens, an ape-derived species, is able to. 

There is a certain urgency in its rhetoric that feels familiar, yet it addresses a broader audience than just humans. It speaks not solely on our behalf but includes us in a more comprehensive, inclusive representation. The audience, which includes humans, appears to be multispecies, yet remains engaged. The human perspective is juxtaposed with, or perhaps complemented by, a non-human viewpoint.

Synocene - Beyond the Anthropocene

Synocene is an immersive spatial sound installation that explores a de-centered view of our anthropocentric experience of the natural world, to imagine a future beyond the Anthropocene. Audiences to this work will discover the many narratives created by human experiences of nature in a hybrid writing with AI, along with forest soundscape recordings from within Natura 2000 sites. 

To achieve the current version of the installation, a citizen engagement workshop took place in the Glengarriff Harbour and Woodland Natura 2000 site (Ireland), where the local community explored new forms of interaction and perception within their forest. These participants worked with an artificial intelligence engine to envision narratives of a more-than-human world. A future era where humanity’s relationship to other forms of life or existence has changed. 

The dreamlike setting of the installation becomes a space within which the public can discover these narratives, to contemplate and reflect on attitudes towards the natural world. This work is an ever evolving attempt at capturing the co-esitence of human/non-human/more-than-human narratives of the world.

Plastic Magnitudes

Plastic Magnitudes is a community-specific, immersive art installation illuminating research from the Joint Research Centre Commission on plastic particulates and their potential threat to humans as they enter the food chain as microplastics and nanoplastics. 

Inspired by the flow of plastic particulates through water supply systems and the digestive tracts of mussels, the installation juxtaposes visual imagery from plastic particulate research laboratories with images of environmental plastics. 

The physical materials in the installation are constructed from the fusion of repurposed sheet plastic and marine plastic debris, collected during community clean-ups in County Clare and County Galway, Ireland. The plastic was fused with community members during numerous SciArt workshops where participants talked through plastic pollution and policy, eco-anxiety, and solutions. A product of community engagement, the artwork offers a creative learning environment where viewers can positively experience, process, and discuss new perspectives on the puzzling life cycle of plastics.

These Relations Are Forever

These Relations are Forever weaves together agricultural policy, toxicology, water quality research, environmental law, and art around the common theme of chemical pollution. The scientific practices of four women researchers are conveyed and re-imagined following the thread of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDC’s), which permeate food, soil, and water, and are increasingly more persistent and everlasting in daily lives. 

The four screens form a space across which the collaboratively created rituals are performed. The women communicate, stepping up at key moments to symbolically take part in each of the four rituals, showing support across time and space. In these rituals, methods from dominant scientific practices are woven together with spoken text, movement and symbolic locations and objects. Here ritual is used as a tool to create a moment outside of everyday life, to slow down, be present and show gratitude and to acknowledge the alterations chemicals make to bodies and ecosystems.

Seagull Fountain

Kittiwakes seagulls used to live in enormous colonies on remote islands in the Arctic Ocean, but due to environmental changes they are currently under threat of extinction. These birds have recently been migrating to Arctic cities like Tromsø, in the north of Norway. Three years ago, an ever-growing colony of kittiwakes, behaving almost as interspecies activists, took over the Tromsø art museum. Loud noises, intense smells and multitude of nests on windowsills and ledges triggered an equally loud outcry from the locals of this otherwise peaceful town. Three light and mobile tripod structures with sculptural nesting modules on top were developed in collaboration with researchers and placed next to the building’s façade. In this way, the nests the birds made in these new “hotels” could carefully and slowly be moved away from the building. Harmony with the locals was restored as the colony followed, and the aim for the future is to install two larger and permanent tripods further away in order to welcome more kittiwakes from the rest of the town.

Aqueous Memories

Aqueous Memories plunges visitors into the wet, fluid thoughts of water, which hold and connect us with the memory of human metamorphoses on earth. It also tells the story of waters stained by oil, black water that carries stories of extractivism and colonialism. 

As these waters flow and spread out into space, gradually they also seep into ourselves. Interweaving hydrofeminism and evolutionary ecology, this wallpaper proposes the exploration of an interspecific aqueous membrane while becoming the moult of the surrounding walls. It aims to remind audiences of our nature as bodies of water, and how, as such, we carry within us the memories of the sea.

Nos Futurs Radio

Nos Futurs Radio is a performance space, a meeting place, "pirate" radio and a platform for expressing thoughts, a laboratory for postcapitalist imagination, available to minds who think and act with attention to diversity, collectivity and plurality.