Honorary Mention
A cross-sectoral project centered on utilizing high-end MR research results, The Tides Within Us is an ongoing exploration into the world beyond the limits of our senses at the intersection of art, science, and technology. To create this project, Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF)—one of the world’s leading immersive art collectives—partnered with Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine MEVIS— pioneers in digital transformation of health care. Scientific data sets that peer deep into the human body formed the starting point of this unique and ambitious collaboration. The Institute’s expertise in digital medicine and the MR-Lab research has enabled MLF to work with medical data acquired from a modern clinical MR-scanner.
The result is a series of stunning interactive screens that allow the audience to explore the human ecosystem, investigating the flow of oxygen through the cardiovascular system, with cutting edge tracking technology—painting a picture of a human body as a fluid event. This collaboration has opened new ways of seeing and experiencing our bodies. As immersive technology continues to evolve, offering new platforms for experiential and embodied learning, the potential for this collaboration grows too. The ultimate goal of the project is to change the way people learn and think about themselves in relation to the environment. Where does the human body end, and where does it begin?
The work was first presented as part of the new media art exhibition, “Human Nature”, that opened at York Art Gallery in October 2020. In the summer of 2021, *The Tides Within Us* will be presented as part of “Observations on Being”—a series of awe-inspiring immersive audio-visual artworks across Coventry’s Charterhouse Heritage Park for the UK’s Coventry City of Culture 2021, featuring high-profile collaborations with international experts in the fields of music, nature, science, and technology.
Credits
Concept: Marshmallow Laser Feast
Directed by: Barnaby Steel, Ersin Han Ersin, Robin McNicholas
In collaboration with Natan Sinigaglia
Executive producer: Eleanor (Nell) Whitley
Executive producer: Mike Jones
Senior producer: Carolina Vallejo
Producer: Martin Jowers
Producer: Oriana Neidecker
Technical director : Mike McKellar
Visual direction, system design, and graphics programming : Natan Sinigaglia
Senior developer: Randal Vasquez
Senior developer Install: Chris Plant
Composition, sound design, and spatialization: James Bulley
Sound system design: Simon Hendry
Houdini artist: Lewis Saunders
Creative technologist: Adi Wiedersheim
3D Designer: Nathan Bayliss
Studio manager: Aisha Saeed
Finance manager: Harriet Wharton
Brain, Lung, Skeletal Surface, and Heart Data: Fraunhofer MEVIS, Germany
Nasal Cavity, Oral Cavity, Pharynx, Larynx, Vocal Cords, Trachea data: Zygote Media Group Inc.
Scientific Partners: Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine MEVIS, Matthias Günther, Bianka Hofmann, Alexander Köhn, Mathias Neugebauer, Sabrina Haase, and Hanne Ballhausen
Co-Commissioned by York Mediale, York Museums Trust, and Coventry City of Culture 2021
With support from Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine MEVIS (Matthias Günther, Bianka Hofmann, Alexander Köhn, Mathias Neugebauer, Sabrina Haase, Hanne Ballhausen); York Museums Trust, York Mediale, and Coventry City of Culture 2021.
Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF) create immersive experiences, expanding perception and exploring our connection with the natural world. Fusing architectural tools, contemporary imaging techniques, and performance with tactile forms, MLF sculpt spaces that lay dormant until animated by curiosity and exploration. Informed as much by playfulness as research, MLF break the boundaries to worlds beyond our senses. Fraunhofer MEVIS Embedded in a worldwide network of clinical and academic partners, Fraunhofer MEVIS develops real-world software solutions for image and data-supported early detection, diagnosis, and therapy. Natan Sinigaglia (IT) is a sound and visual artist based in Varese, Italy. With a strong background in music, contemporary dance, and real-time graphics, he creates canvases where languages lose their boundaries and share forms and meanings.
Jury Statement
The Tides Within Us is a unique trip into the human body, following real blood flow heart data captured by an MR scanner that amplify our perception of the body and its boundaries. Where does the human body begin, and where does it end? What’s the relationship between humans and nature? An immersive scientific exploration with interactive screens that allow the audience to explore the fluidity of the human ecosystem, mapping the flow of oxygen through the cardiovascular system, thus challenging the boundary between our bodies and our environment, beyond the limit of our perception. This arts–science partnership between the Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF) and pioneers in medical image computing Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine MEVIS, shows that everything is connected and that we share a similar structure to nature. The expertise of Fraunhofer Institute in digital medicine and the MR-Lab research made possible the artistic exploration of MLF using scientific medical data sets and advanced capturing techniques at scale, to create a human 600 feet tall. In a moment of strong evolution and transformation of digital medicine, this work opens up our imagination and perception: at this scale, lungs look like trees, arteries like river deltas, and neural pathways like thunderstorms, opening novel ways of experiencing our bodies, and changing the way people learn and think about the body in relation to the environment. The Tides Within Us is an ongoing science–arts collaboration that will continue to evolve and expand.