Bleached. 2019. Interactive installation with Processing.js.
Coral is an organism constantly in a state of growth and destruction, and this process is entangled in human political, economic, cultural, and social systems. The core idea for this specific piece is to generate empathy for the coral by using motion capture technology to impact an image of bleached coral shown on a screen. As viewers move throughout the space, the image of the coral changes colors and glitches based on movement captured in the space, bleaching the coral reef on the screen. The Kinect sensor was hidden in the installation so that changes on screen could not be linked to singular movements, but rather appeared as part of a system. This work considers ideas such as the Anthropocene and multispecies ethnography to address the environmental crisis facing coral reefs. It was created with a 70” television monitor, Kinect sensor, my laptop, and an original sketch in the Processing environment. I interviewed Dr. Donald Potts, a biologist at the UCSC Coastal Science campus, to gather information about coral bleaching for this project.
