Embodied Pacific: Through a Porcelain Cast

Claudine Arendt

In collaboration with ocean scientists
Mark Ohman and Sven Gastauer
Curated by Clarissa Chevalier
Sept 9, 2024 – Jan 26, 2025

How do we sense and make sense of microscopic ocean life? Embodied Pacific: Through a Porcelain Cast explores the artistic transformation of oceanographic plankton data into haptic ceramic form. Acoustic and optical data about meso-zooplankton are collected by Zooglider, an underwater robot designed by Mark Ohman and engineers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Zooglider is specifically designed to study plankton in their environment without physically removing them from the ocean.

Claudine Arendt reimagines acoustic data into 3D shapes, which become molds for porcelain ceramic vessels. The acoustic fingerprint of different plankton species informs the unique shape of each vessel. The connection between each plankton species and its corresponding vessel is made explicit by glazed transfer shadowgraph images of the plankton, captured by Zooglider and glazed on the inside of each vessel.

Plankton are organisms that play a vital role in the ocean, at the lower end of trophic food webs, producing oxygen, and capturing carbon dioxide. Through a Porcelain Cast invites us to ponder how we might reimagine oceanographic and artistic research, attuned to the sensory and physical realities of plankton. The vessels, models, acrylic etchings, and paper wall panels offer tangible examples of the intermingling and cocreation of artistic and craft research with contemporary oceanography, and the possibilities this catalyzes for oceanic sensing.

Through a Porcelain Cast is part of the fall 2024 Embodied Pacific platform of programming at UC San Diego organized by the Visual Arts Department and Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography for the Getty Foundation’s region-wide PST ART: Art and Science Collide initiative. Embodied Pacific features projects by 30 artists working with researchers in laboratories, field sites and archives in Southern California and the Pacific Islands. It invites immersive engagement in oceanography, Indigenous design and critical craft through exhibitions, workshops and programs at six venues

¿Como percibimos y damos sentido a la vida oceänica microscópcia?La tecnología Zooglider fue diseñada por Mark Ohmany los ingenieros de Scripps Institution of Oceanography para estudiar el plancton sin sacarlo físicamente de su ambiente natural. Zooglider genera datos acústicos y visuales sobre el mesozooplancton. Claudine Arendt transforma estos datos en figuras tridimensionales para luego convertirlos en moldes para vasijas de cerámica. Esto nos permite percibir e imaginar la forma escultórica de los datos científicos.

Datos de plankton en distintos modos sensoriales. El plancton es un conjunto de organismos que desempeñan un papel vital en el océano, al sustentar las redes tróficas, producir oxígeno y capturar dióxido de carbono. ¿Cómo podemos estudiar estos seres en su propio entorno y sin dañar sus frágiles cuerpos? ¿Cómo podemos sintonizar las ciencias marinas con sus realidades sensoriales y físicas?

Claudine Arendt is a Luxembourgish artist based in Amsterdam. She performs and exhibits in public spaces, has presented at science and ceramics conferences, and collaborates with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She was awarded the Stipendium for Emerging Artists by Mondriaan Fonds, has stayed in residence at the European Ceramic Workcenter and International Studio & Curatorial Program, and installed a fountain sculpture at Oeuvre Nationale de Secours Grande-Duchesse Charlotte. She received her B.F.A from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and an M.A. in European Film and Media Studies from the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.

Sven Gastauer is a senior research scientist at the Thünen Institute of Sea Fisheries in Germany and a visiting scholar at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He is a fisheries acoustician, who studies fish and zooplankton distributions as well as their interactions and responses to changes in the environment. He has worked with Zooglider since 2019, during his postdoctoral studies at Scripps. He has studied marine environments in many of the world’s oceans.

Mark Ohman is Distinguished Professor of the Graduate Division at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He is a zooplankton ecologist who studies copepods, krill, and other organisms with which they interact as predators and prey. He is the founder of the California Current Ecosystem Long-Term Ecological Research site, supported by the National Science Foundation. He has studied plankton ecology in different parts of the ocean, including in both the northern and southern hemispheres of the Pacific, the Northwest Atlantic, the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea, and the western Mediterranean Sea. He developed Zooglider in collaboration with the Instrument Development Group at Scripps.