Naval Gazing

Slovenia / 2014

The project Naval Gazing establishes a novel relationship between biotic marine entities, the human, and the sea at a time when increasing productivity and climate change are pushing towards an agricultural exploration of the sea, and while the distinction between nature and culture is becoming ever-more hazy. The habiton is a kinetic kunst-machine, which simultaneously acts as a platform for the attachment of organisms, creating a travelling, uncontrollable transient biotope in the North Sea. It’s becoming a true example of non-human architecture which unravels through time, as the colonization of the structure gradually breaks its symmetry, causing it to transform from a human-conceived kinetic architecton into an immobilised, utilized and eventually sunk micro-ecology formed around the habiton.

Author: Špela Petrič
Scientific advisor: Klaas Timmermans
3D modeling and filming: Miha Turšič
Zasnova habitona: Andre Smit
Habition constructor: Matthias Schrama
Production: Bioart and Design Award, the Netherlands

Project is part of the exhibition Liminal agents.

Co-production: City of Women and ŠKUC Gallery. In cooperation with Kapelica Gallery.