Anemone Soliloquy, 2012
Audio, video, programming, computers, infrared cameras, fish
2012
G. Craig Hobbs
Inspired by the scientific illustration of Ernst Haeckel and the cellular automata of John Conway as well as the embodiment theory of Francisco Varela and N. Katherine Hayles, G. Craig Hobbs' video installation Anemone Soliloquy explores the sea anemones of coastal California as carriers of algorithmic complexity, stunning visual beauty, and supreme bioindicators of ocean health.
Populating spatial topographies in-between land and sea, the anemones in Hobbs' work reveal the embodied conduit between organism and habitat, stimulus and response, medium and method. Working from a visual database of tide pool site studies, Hobbs intertwines the visual and aural sub-surface world of the anemone with the movements of his viewers and various sub-species throughout the installation space. The establishment of this space reveals a direct correlation between the natural environment and our presence in it through mutation/ synthesis of the human/ anemone worlds.
Anemone Soliloquy was installed in February, 2012 at the University of California at Berkeley's Worth Ryder Gallery.