The ‘Marine tumbleweed’ is a self-organizing creature, evolved from plastic bottles, electric jellyfish and LED’s. The tumbleweed spawned from within the ‘trash vortex, an island larger than Texas, in the Pacific Ocean. On the night of July 19. 2008, these creatures are expected to be visible off the end of the Santa Monica pier, as they are attracted by the presence of light emanating from the “Glow” festival.
The Marine Tumbleweed will be attempting to communicate through light transmission and scientists from the Center for Marine Intelligence will be attempting to decipher this language of light, allowing it to converse with the public. This was all part of a staged performance where 4000 bottles were cleaned and then woven into fictitous sea-creatures, designed to raise awareness of an environmental issue. We engaged the public through both morse code based interactivity with the creature and through our performance, as pseudo-scientists from the fictitous “Center for Marine Intelligence”.
- Commissioning Agent: Glow festival, DOCA Santa Monica, CA
- Project Manager: Freya Bardell, Brian Howe
- Team: Freya Bardell, Brian Howe, Jihyeun Byeon, BaoQuoc Doan, Moshe Hacmon, Ed Henry, Elizabeth Marley, Ryan Wartena
- Size of work: 20′D x7′H
- Media: recycled plastic bottles, color changing LED’s, interactive LED textscreen
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- image credit (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)
