“Seaphony”: The Symphony of Life on Planet Ocean

As a 500 square meter, three-dimensional audiovisual installation that makes the natural soundscape of the ocean spatially tangible, Seaphony gives the ocean its own voice. At the same time, the dramaturgy and staging in space also capture the conflict between this fascinating landscape of sounds and the increasing noise pollution caused by humans.

The journey begins in Ross Island off the Antarctic continent, leads along the great ocean currents, and ends in the icy waters of the Arctic. Along the way, the ice cracks, seals call, you hear the song of whales and the drumming of tiny crustaceans. But the harsh sounds of a ship’s engines are also mixed into the concert, introducing disharmonies caused by noise pollution. The sound art, presented in spatial 360-degree ambisonic acoustics, is accompanied by a fluid light production that transforms the play of light and color in the oceans in a painterly way and seems to dissolve the boundaries of space.

Sound artists Chris Watson and Tony Myatt, together with light and video artist Theresa Baumgartner, transform the production hall of the Alte Münze into an oceanic cosmos of spatial soundscapes and universes of four-meter-high light sculptures – a parallel world that plays with our senses and allows us to sense the infinite expanse and majesty of the ocean both imaginatively and physically.

The exhibition was initiated and conceived by OCEANS21, a Berlin-based non-profit organization with which producers Diana Schniedermeier and Ina Krüger focus on communicating socially relevant issues through contemporary formats at the intersection of art, science and technology.

SEAPHONY was supported by the Interactive Media Foundation, cooperated with the Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz (BUND) as well as with GEO Magazin and radioeins as media partners.