alex calderwood

Borealfish

February 15, 2023 art creative

recording of the Borealfish ambient projection: a green aurora through which deep sea creatures emerge

Borealfish is an ambient projector piece I made with the Santa Cruz–based Liminal Space Collective, exhibited in the Santa Cruz Circle Church during the collective’s Northern Lights / Impermanence events in early 2023, shortly before the building’s demolition.

Built in TouchDesigner, the piece takes public-domain timelapse footage of the aurora borealis and warps it temporally in response to live audio — it shared the room with a didgeridoo sound-therapist’s performance. I isolated the green channel of the aurora and used that 0–1 luminance signal as a multiplicative filter over deep-sea footage, so that sea creatures emerge mysteriously into shapes that still read as a dancing skyscape. Letting the deep-sea layer “peek” through the darkness above a luminance threshold gave the emergence more dynamism — a nod to the photophores by which those creatures make their own light. It’s best viewed on an OLED projector, where the blacks aren’t projected at all, producing a “painting with light” effect.

The room was themed around notions of impermanence and quiet contemplation — an ocean-blue nautical counterpoint to the more frenetic immersive works woven through the church’s labyrinth of stairwells and installations.

Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole.