Rotterdam Art Week
Ocean Bloom ✺ Raising awareness for noise pollution with immersive art
Ocean Bloom is an immersive awareness-experience that allows visitors to experience our deep sea noise crisis firsthand.
— CHALLENGE
A Silent Threat With Loud Consequences
In recent decades, noise pollution in the ocean has increased dramatically. Most sea life is dependent on sound for their survival, making this type of pollution extremely damaging. As this environmental threat unfolds beyond our immediate perception, bringing attention to it is extremely challenging. For Rotterdam Art Week, the challenge was to spotlight this often-overlooked environmental crisis, bringng the invisibility of this issue to the public eye.
— SOLUTION
Turning Deep Sea Noise Into Immersive Art
Addressing the challenge of bringing the urgent yet unseen issue of ocean noise pollution to the public's attention, we developed Ocean Bloom – an immersive underwater environment that integrated lights and sounds into one immersive experience. Our strategy with Ocean Bloom was to recreate and mimic the experience of underwater life when confronted with noise pollution, replicating actual underwater noise recordings. The result was a jarring experience, immersing visitors in a simulated deep-sea journey.
28K
Rotterdam Art Week was visited by 28.000 people.
45
Ocean Bloom played for over 45 hours.
ITL
Ocean Bloom got coverage the Italian Neural magazine.
“Ocean Bloom resonates with the ocean's hidden truths, transforming noise pollution into an immersive, tangible experience.”
Immersive Environment
Ocean Bloom is a 40 m2 immersive environment that mirrors the disturbing reality of our noise polluted deep sea. Visitors are encourages to walk through the scene, and as lights and sounds come from all sides, they find themselves getting immersed into an distressed underwater experience.
Deep Sea Symphony
Drawing inspiration from actual underwater recordings of various human activities, Ocean Bloom creates symphony of oceanic sounds. This soundscape is brought to life by state-of-the-art 4DSOUND software and a bespoke 18-point speaker arrangement that immerses listeners in sound from all directions—up, down, left, and right.
Interactive Lights System
The interactive light system provided by artist Boris Acket serve as guides, directing visitors through the immersive oceanic journey. As the 3D soundscape shifts and evolves, the lights respond in interactively, adding tension and impact to the installations narrative.
Project: Ocean Bloom
Client: Rotterdam Art Week
Creative Direction: Sandipan Nath
Immersive Sound: Sebastiaan Smink
Scenography: Boris Acket
Audio Engineer: Shehryar Ahmad, Casimir Geelhoed
Video: Dammes Kieft
- This project was realised while part of Studio Smink -