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Seaphony —
Life on
Planet Ocean

Immersive exhibition

Seaphony -
Life on Planet Ocean

The oceans are a cosmos of immeasurable beauty, from the shallow Wadden Sea to the widely unknown, lightless deep sea. Seaphony. Life on Planet Ocean is an invitation to engage with the sea and its inhabitants with all your senses, to experience its fascination as well as its dangers from different perspectives:

Seaphony - an acoustic journey through the sound worlds of the ocean

The 500-square-metre audiovisual installation Seaphony - The Symphony of Life on Planet Ocean sends visitors on an acoustic journey around the world, starting on Ross Island off the Antarctic continent, along the great ocean currents and into the icy waters of the Arctic. On the way, the ice cracks, seals call, you hear the song of whales and the drumming of tiny crustaceans. But the harsh sounds of the ship's engines are also mixed into the concert: disharmonies caused by noise pollution.
The sound art, presented in spatial 360-degree acoustics, is accompanied by a fluid light production that painterly transforms the play of light and colour in the oceans and seems to dissolve the boundaries of space.

The Bone - a Virtual Reality Journey into the Consciousness of a Sea Dweller

From the perspective of the salmon, the virtual reality installation deals immersively and poetically with the very different living conditions of wild and farmed fish and thus also takes a look at the increasing alienation between man and nature.

OCEAN.WORLD.MODULES - The sea and its myth through time and space

The audio tableaus OCEAN.WORLD.MODULES are dedicated to the myth of the sea from a global and cultural-critical perspective and throw light on the taming of the ocean by man. Oscillating between nature and art sounds, visitors drift through electro-acoustic sound worlds, traversing not only oceans but also space and time.

Exhibition contributions by the Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland illustrate background information on the threats to the oceans.

Seaphony exhibition documentary

Seaphony -
Life on Planet Ocean

"Seaphony is a moving experience and an urgent appeal to push for the protection of the oceans"
arte journal
„Oceans are the largest and most sound-rich habitat on the planet.“
Chris Watson, sound recordist, artist & composer
„..the installation is one of the very few ways that people can really engage with full three-dimensional sound.“
Tony Myatt, sound artist, engineer & academic
"I try and disturb the sense of space as much as possible. You don’t really know when the room ends and where it starts. The dimensions create this ocean vastness."
Theresa Baumgartner, light artist
"How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when clearly it is Ocean."
Arthur C. Clarke, Author
"It's about new forms of empathy for the oceans and, in turn, new collaborations between arts and science."
Antje Boetius, marine biologist, director of AWI Institute

Artists and installations

The minds behind the exhibition

Ina Krüger and Diana Schniedermeier - the minds behind OCEANS21 have been working at the interface of art, technology and science for years. Their exhibition Seaphony - Life on Planet Ocean focuses on current projects on the theme of the ocean, which they have implemented together with artists from different fields:

Composer, sound artist, engineer and field recordist Chris Watson (Seaphony)
Sound artist, sound engineer and Prof. of music and sound recording Tony Myatt (Seaphony)
Visual artist Theresa Baumgartner (Seaphony)
Artist Michelle-Marie Letelier (The Bone)
The author and composer duo wittmann/zeitblom (OCEAN.WORLD.MODULES)
Berlin artist Isabel Ott (Funky Seats)
Illustrator Jaroslav Kaschtalinski (One Ocean Map)

Premiere in May 2022 in Berlin

In spring 2022, the exhibition attracted more than 10.000 visitors to the halls of the Alte Münze in Berlin Mitte from 6 May to 8 June. It started with the 500 sqm Seaphony installation, an acoustic underwater journey around the world lasting about 50 minutes. The journey was illustrated on a wall-sized map, the 22-channel sound system for the 360-degree spatial sound (ambisonic) as well as the light installation were specially designed for this space. Further stations were the 18-minute intensive virtual reality experience The Bone, staged in a boat, and OCEAN.WORLD.MODULES, 12 binaurally produced audio tracks by wittmann/zeitblom with a total length of about 45 minutes, to be experienced via headphones on seating sculptures by Berlin artist Isabel Ott.

A separate room was dedicated to the touring exhibition "Ocean" by the BUND Bund für und Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland.
Special offers for schools, discussion rounds with representatives of BUND and artist talks moderated by Britta Steffenhagen accompanied the exhibition.

Seaphony at a glance

The artwork

Seaphony
The symphony of Life on Planet Ocean
Chris Watson, Tony Myatt, Theresa Baumgartner
22-Kanal site-specific, ambisonic spatial sound & light installation
Duration ca. 46’


The Bone
Michelle-Marie Letelier
Virtual Reality Installation
Duration ca. 18’
Oculus Quest & Boat


OCEAN.WORLD.MODULES
wittmann/zeitblom
12 binaural Audio tableaus
Total duration ca. 45’
iPads & headphones

Presskit

Press materials for download:
Press releases, video teasers, logos, images, artist biographies

Download presskit

For more information about the exhibition, please contact us.

More Information

The Bone - Virtual Reality
Installation

The virtual reality installation by Michelle-Marie Letelier draws you into the consciousness of wild and farmed salmon. In a mythical intermediate world between deep sea and universe, reality, dream and utopia, it impressively gives us an idea of the so different living conditions and questions the increasing alienation between humans and nature.

Find out more

Seaphony - Sound & Light
Art Installation

An oceanic cosmos of spatial soundscapes and four-metre-high light sculptures - a parallel world that plays with our senses and lets us feel the infinite vastness and grandeur of the ocean both imaginatively and physically on an acoustic journey from pole to pole.

Find out more

OCEAN.WORLD.
MODULES

The diverse audio tableaus OCEAN.WORLD.MODULES by wittmann/zeitblom throw light on the taming of the oceans by man. Oscillating between sounds of nature and art, visitors drift through electroacoustic sound worlds, traversing not only oceans but also space and time.

Find out more

Support and partners
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OCEANS21 gGmbH
Berlin / Germany