Blooming bacteria (2021)
Blooming Bacteria is one of two artworks (see also Green is not Always Good) resulting from my interest in the environmental condition of the rivers that flow through Boston, specifically, the Charles and Muddy rivers.
Blooming Bacteria aims to critique the decorative role assigned to natural spaces in urban environments, underlining that this assignment plays a crucial role in concealing environmental problems from public awareness. The work primarily centers on Boston's Charles River and draws inspiration from installation art and data visualization, existing at the intersection of these disciplines.
In this work, data from the EPA’s Charles River Buoy is fed into custom software, which utilizes the Charles River’s temperature information to alter the properties and behaviors of a particle system. The particles’ tendency to group ends up creating the image of a bigger green spot, resembling the greenish water coloration that is visible on the river during cyanobacteria blooms, one of the river's major environmental issues linked to water temperature and other variables. The visual output is projected onto a fishbowl filled with water from the Charles River.
