Mutter from the Dark (2025) is the first edition of a small series of ocean-critters data jewellery. The acoustic signatures of squid, salps and copepods are permanently recorded in gold, the mutters now dangling from the ears of my mother. The forms began as acoustic fingerprints and were then lightened through growth algorithms, thinning the material into porous, coral-like structures. As a photograph fixes a moment by recording reflected light, these shapes fix a moment by recording reflected sound: the acoustic fingerprints of organisms’ brief encounter with a beam of sonar. The pieces hold that information in material form, they can be read by touch and catch the golden light.
© Claudine Arendt 2025
lost wax cast by Fonderie Perdue