Waiting for the light is part of the Subocean Botlights series which departs from the fact that most of intercontinental communication relies heavily on the submarine fiber optic cables. This network carries threads of light as thin as tenth of human hair while being as existential to technological societies as the sun is for the plants. We are hanging by a thread while the artificial sun rays plunge through the oceans and light up our faces via bright screens.
Waiting for the light introduces baits into these networks and lures in threads of light from different parts of the globe. The Wardian cases1 function as miniature closed ecosystems and as islands in the network between things – the Internet. Any device connected to this network becomes a target for automated processes – bots – whose motives are mostly non-transparent and therefore unknown. Each plant then becomes an object of interest to these robots whose communicative acts, streams of light, once passed the floors of oceans, are lit back into our environment as bursts of growth light, giving them an agenda they are unaware of. [1] The Wardian case, an early type of terrarium for growing and transporting plants invented by Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward in the first half of the 19th century.
1The Wardian case, an early type of terrarium for growing and transporting plants invented by Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward in the first half of the 19th century.
Waiting for the Light was realised within the framework of the European Media Art Platforms EMARE program at WRO Art Center (Wrocław, Poland) with support of the Creative Europe Culture Programme of the European Union and with additional production support from Tartu in Light festival and Outset Estonia.
