Message cards for "Portrait of Community 2024", the exhibition produced by Living Data and hosted by Gallery 371, 371 Enmore Road Sydney, 8 June - 14 June 2024.
A hyperlinked, animated, fully referenced article by Lisa Roberts with Carmel Bird
350 messages are gathered in plankton mesh and screened in a winged TV
350 messages signify 350 parts per million (ppm) of C02 in the atmosphere considered safe for corals, krill, fish and other communities that humans depend upon. We're now at 422 ppm.
Plankton mesh comes from the Continuous Plankton Recorder used to measure ocean health, the same mesh used to measure the health of lakes, rivers and streams.
The winged TV signifies flying with my sister to be the angels we used to be before humans became slaves and customers of corporations and krill became products in supermarket trolleys.
If you listen, you may hear the wisdom of the universe. Listen. In the beginning, was a fish. She was a fish among fishes. She became a wonderful snake. Then a magnificent bird. Finally, Sophie became a human foetus, and she was born. A baby girl! Oh, she could dance and sing. “I am Sophie, Sophie, Sophie. I can play the violin!”
One magical day, she gave a concert, and in the music, people heard and saw the fish, the snake, the bird. And they knew, and they remembered – for yes! – long long ago they too were once fish, snakes, birds. On their shoulders their own wings grew, stretched, unfolded. Strong and bright. Sophie rose with the music, and the people rose with her. And oh, she played and played and played. It was the music of the human race, and in that music was the wisdom of the universe.
Euphausia superba (an Antarctic krill) hears the music in the Southern Ocean where she swims. In supermarkets people recognise themselves in the voices of girls and violins. They recognise the rhythm of the sea and imagine choreographies of past, present and future lives. People rethink how knowledge is passed down through structures of culture and learning; people make their own music, write their own songs, as artists and scientists, as individuals and communities.
Now the messages come for the plankton mesh and winged TV, arranged in cyberspace, hyperlinked, animated and fully referenced.
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