Continuous fluctuation: dolphin_line_fisher
Generative Art, Spatial Audio; Dome Projection - Planetary. 2025
Coordination: Matheus Montanari
Co-authors: Caetano Sordi, Lilian Sander, Viviane Vedana, Rafael Devos
Funding: Leonardo-ASU Imagination Fellowship, part of the Resonant Waters Project
The work is a generative audiovisual art piece that explores the unique ecological relationship between humans and dolphins in southern Brazil, where a centuries-old practice of collaborative fishing takes place. Dolphins herd schools of fish and signal their location in a shared gestual language so that fishers can cast their nets in precise locations, benefiting both species.
The piece is a dome projection designed for planetariums, integrating soundscapes captured during fieldwork—land-based and underwater recordings of dolphin vocalizations, fish movements, and human activity—conducted in collaboration with biologists and anthropologists. These sounds were composed into a spatialized audio piece using binaural mixing techniques to evoke the gestures of fishing and the behavior of the dolphins. The visual component employs strange attractors that respond to the sound frequencies. In this sense, sound generates space, immersing us in more-than-human perspectives and speculating on how dolphins use echolocation to navigate.
The work poetically addresses the interactions between humans, dolphins, and their environment, proposing an “acoustemological” practice that weaves together art, science, and local communities in safeguarding this endangered heritage, while fostering interdisciplinary and interspecies collaborations.