Whisper Drifter Trickster

The project

This haunting, ethereal installation uses light to try to translate what might be signals sent to us by nature.

The work reproduces the daily cycles of the vertical migration of planktonic snails. These organisms have transparent shells that dissolve with oceanic acidification, which is happening because carbon dioxide from the atmosphere dissolves into the ocean.

Whisper Drifter Trickster reminds us that what happens in the deep ocean is inextricably linked to our daily lives. It asks us to imagine these strange organisms as oracles trying to tell us something urgent in a language we don’t quite understand.

The project brings together Dr Luis Hernan, lecturer in digital architecture at Sheffield, Dr Carolina Ramirez-Figueroa from the Royal College of Art, and Dr Katja Peijnenburg, an oceanographer from the Naturalis biodiversity center in the Netherlands.