Evolution of Fish

Interactive Augmented Reality Large Projection Installation, by Tamiko Thiel and /p, 2019
Created during an artist residency for the Digital Graffiti Festival, Alys Beach, Florida, May 17th - 18th, 2019

Evolution of Fish is an augmented reality large projection that turns the surroundings--outside on building facades, or inside on gallery walls--into an underwater reef, filled with schools of fish. Visitors can use iPads to guide the fish around the space--but the more they intervene in the virtual ecosystem, the more the fish turn to plastic garbage. Originally created for the Digital Graffiti Festival in the Florida Gulf Coast, the installation includes large silvery Amberjacks, game fish known for their love of debris, and colorful reef fish that will become more common on the Florida Gulf Coast, as they migrate northward due to warming waters.

Digital Graffiti Festival: large scale outdoor projection

Digital Graffiti Festival, Alys Beach, Florida, 17-21 May 2019
Curator Brett Phares

For the World Premiere at the Digital Graffiti Festival in Alys Beach, Florida, we projected Evolution of Fish -- and any visitors who were caught by the AR camera -- onto two house facades on each side of a small park, thus engulfing visitors in a huge outdoor "aquarium." Visitors could guide the fish using two iPad connected to the projectors -- but the more they interfered with the virtual ecosystem, the more the fish turned into plastic waste.

Pan around two Evolution of Fish augmented reality projections, Digital Graffiti Festival, Alys Beach.

Video recording of Evolution of Fish projected on a house at Alys Beach for the Digital Graffiti Festival, 2019

Playing around with the video feedback loop when you point the iPad at its own projected image.

Threats to Ocean Ecosystems in the Anthropocene

Evolution of Fish seeks to playfully engage the public in a very serious threat to ocean ecosystems: ocean borne plastic waste. The links below are a work in progress as I seek positive responses to how this can be solved - or at least ameliorated.

Ocean borne plastic waste

Eliminate plastics, especially single use plastics. Each of us can start by reducing our own use of plastics, but we need to put pressure on governments and corporations too. Greenpeace offers a "Million Acts of Blue" toolkit for with ideas on how to proceed. Some countries are starting to ban certain single use plastics already.

"Bioplastics" e.g. from Lego reduce the carbon footprint of production, but are NOT biodegradable. Industrial farming of plants for plastics and biofuels can destroy the environment and push marginal farmers into poverty.
The Global Ghost Gear Initiative addresses "ghost nets" - lost or abandoned fishing nets - that make up 46% of the ocean garbage patches, together with other fishing gear (ropes, traps, crates, baskets).

Hawai'i burns ghost nets to generate electric power. Companies like Econyl are trying to recycle fishing nets and other ocean waste into carpet and textile yarn. And Australian artists "upscale" the ghost nets into artworks.
Improve waste recycling and elimination. China is the largest source of ocean plastics - due to waste mis-management but also because until 2018 Western countries shipped their waste to China for disposal. The USA recycled only 9% of its waste, even before this, and is now struggling to deal with all of its waste itself - perhaps why there is a surge of interest in dealing with plastic waste, as the problem can't be exported anymore.

Indonesia, with the world's 4th largest population and a huge total coastline, is the second largest source, and is finally starting to address the problem. Foreign aid for waste management in developing countries can benefit in many ways - e.g. learning from a town in the Philippines that "upgraded" waste pickers to civil servants.
Innovative ideas upcycle plastics, such as this building in Taiwan (more photos here).

There are newly discovered plastic-eating bacteria , but tinkering with ecosystems can often create even larger unforeseen problems.

Catch plastics before they enter the oceans (at the rate of one truckload every hour). Baltimore Waterfront commissioned trash wheels to collect river borne trash. Ranmarine is marketing their "WasteShark" internationally.

Clean up plastics already in the oceans: The Ocean Cleanup Project has received $35 million in funding and promises to "clean up all the oceans in 10 years" - but only addresses large pieces of the 1% floating near the surface.

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