convivial has created a multimedia installation in the new 400m² art gallery at The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, next to Los Angeles.

A main theme of our exhibition is plankton.

We collaborated with biologist Christian Sardet to learn about the topic. In one drop of water, we can find 160 planctonic species forment 98% of the living mass in the ocean, including whales, fishes, turtles and so on. Plankton is a basic element of many food chains, it collects 30% of our CO2 emissions and produce more than 50% of the oxygen we breath.

3D soundscapes synchronised with the plankton was developped with sound artist Roman Jungblut. The plankton simulation is communicating directly with Ableton Live software and a surround sound system. The sound of each plankton specimen is translated according to its position and size on the projections, thus creating a strong immersive effect of spatial sound.

100+ suspended intricate glass sculptures representing radiolarians and diatoms 🦠 were created with glass artists. Our glass scultptures represents specific categories of plankton, radiolarians, diatoms and foraminifera. In addition to their fascinating visual appearance this type of plankton eventually turns into sand, sand itself being the main material to create glass.

German artist Susan Liebold has been using the lampblowing technique and creating intricate shapes inspired by the exoskeleton shapes of the radiolarians.

Artist Peter Kuchinke created at the Glass Factory in Sweden, glass blown shapes inpired by foraminfera and golden diatoms

Finally japanese glass-blowing artist Masami Hirohata, created delicate shapes inspired by plankton.

The semi transparent glass sculptures are revealed with projections