Interactive Media Foundation
The Bone is an interactive VR experience inside the skull of a wild salmon, where certain elements and narrations are to be discovered. These narrations address ethical and ecological issues related to salmon farming, domestication and coexistence with this species, from a non-anthropocentric, eco-philosophical and indigenous perspective.
The Bone addresses the ecological and ethical issues that are becoming increasingly urgent with the rapidly growing salmon industry worldwide and questions the increasing alienation between man and nature. Located inside an intermediate world–between deep sea and universe; between present, future or past; between reality, dream or utopia–this skull is a sculptural/architectural construction.
The experiencer discovers two otoliths that grow interactively, revealing details about this salmon’s life in the past, as well as reflections towards its cousins: the captive salmon. Here a living animal marked by long journeys and different life cycles in rivers and oceans, there an organism trapped in a mass breeding facility, genetically manipulated and degraded to high-yield biomass. These reflections are presented as a voice-over from the wild salmon’s perspective; the owner of the skull, in a way that follows the salmon’s poetic flow of consciousness.
The real and virtual space are welcomed by a yoik song by Sámi artist Ánde Somby, providing a unique echo and spatiality to this VR experience which is physically installed inside an old fishing boat. The materiality of the real old wood sensually echoes the virtual skull, inviting the experiencers on a journey that departs from their position as fish species, toward the poetry of the fish's life. Exhibited at Fiskepiren Ferry Terminal in the frame of Screen City Biennial 2019, Stavanger, Norway
