the concept of Miami Beach being flooded
and overgrown with corals that's not an
apocalyptic vision if we keep warming
the planet and the sea levels rise you
can't build a better artificial reef
than Miami
we are for morphologic and we are a
hybrid art and science endeavor based
out of Miami Florida we've been best
friends since we were in middle school
the morphology of an animal pretty much
describes its physical characteristics
and so this is how science and corals
gets done studying skeleton studying how
many tentacles you know these are what
create species in the past nowadays we
have DNA the coral has an organism as a
symbol is the perfect hybrid between art
and science there are these animals that
are in the most naturally fluorescent
organisms on the planet corals are
living on a completely different lower
time scale so a theme that we work with
a lot at our practice of documenting
these corals involves perception of time
we can set up a camera observe corrals
over a long period of time then you
really start to observe the hidden lives
of these creatures what looks like an
inanimate object that is not moving on
its own volition is in fact very active
when you speed things up Natural History
Redux the idea really was to only
feature invertebrates from South Florida
we're not trying to go super exotic into
you know Australia Indonesia you know
let's focus on what's right here at home
and let's film it let's see what happens
it was really magical filming a lot of
those we're having to create our own
studio equipment we were having to
create our own DIY aquariums or ways to
film things in very small spaces we
didn't go to film school but you know
when the digital SLR comes along that
has HD video capability and we can use
macro lenses and we can do all the
things that were used to from a
photographic perspective that changed
everything for us we challenged
ourselves now if we want to become
filmmakers we got to do one every single
week
we gotta find an animal we have to film
it we have to make a soundtrack all the
sound tracks are interpretations of the
video that I'm watching Jarrod composes
music for a very specific purpose
it's an ambiance we complete the video
then watch it get a vibe off it record
the creature if I can we'll just create
some sounds based upon those samples
a lot of that soundtrack is darker it's
dark yeah I mean this notion really
isn't that can be a horrific flavor a
big place like for example in one of the
videos the purple forest video there's
this little crab on this piece of macro
algae in this a decorator crab so
literally the crabs has decorated
himself with the macro algae so it's
also a purple crab and there's little
flea like shrimp unwittingly lands on
this crabs head for in about 10 seconds
like the crab just goes up and eats this
little guy Bruce Lee style just eat it
and then he's just back to you know
going through the algae you know and
that's just what it is
a living coral is a community on the
microscopic scale and macroscopic scale
where we can see we see worms we see
crustaceans we see fishes living in
corals scientist puts a coral under a
microscope and can see all the different
microorganisms that live there naturally
symbiotically as a community the corals
form reefs coral reefs and humans have
their own symbiosis in many ways whether
it's here in South Florida or in a
tropical island nation people are
dependent on reefs for their source of
food for protection from storms in
tropical nations that collect marine
life for the aquarium hobby the reef is
a source of income it provides a
tremendous incentive to island nations
to protect their reefs their natural
resources
in our exploration of Miami's coastal
waterways we've encountered at least
four different undescribed species
unknown to science
these four particular species are all
zoanthids a type of soft coral that's in
its own order that's basically
overlooked by mainstream science these
are the mining vice know anthems we
named the Vice Oh acids based on a
particular color morph that is beautiful
sky blue and neon pink Center and it
looks like the Miami Vice colors
it took us years to figure out how to
grow these animals reliably and it is
basically been a currency for us and
this is what we have been supplying to
Aquarius all around the world also
universities public aquariums and that
is what really has provided us more
income than any grants any other art or
multimedia project over the years as
we're the only ones that can do it what
interests me and it's a discussion I've
had with Colin a lot is these colors
why do corals fluoresce this subject is
still a mystery it really wasn't until
the 60s when people started to recognize
the corals were fluorescent I'll never
forget I was 16 years old and of course
to go to any aquarium store in the 90s
in New Hampshire you had to drive you
know two hours and I just got my license
and I drove to an aquarium store and I
saw corals for the first time under blue
actinic light you know this blue actinic
light is is what causes the corals to
fluorescent so it's the first time that
I saw 4sm corals and it just you know
that was that
if you go scuba-diving during the day
and go deep
you don't need flashlights if you're in
clear water whether it's clear blue
water or clear green water once you're
down about a hundred feet an even more
interesting when you're down maybe 120
and you're a little bit narked all the
corals are glowing so you're under the
influence of nitrogen narcosis and all
the corals around you are these
brilliant colors it's a it's a very
interesting experience
all the reef fishes are seeing this if
their eyes are sensitive to fluorescent
light and what scientists tell us they
are there's something going on
somebody is sensitive to this
fluorescent light but we don't fully
understand it yet
and we are definitely seeing it and
appreciate
a lot of the ideas that guide the way
they grow the corrals in the way they
shoot them those are all choices that
they make it's not like they grow in
this way that you see them in the videos
they they're curated and presented in a
certain way
there's something really intense about
your art being a living thing that you
clone and then you provide the context
for it
they have invested some good equipment
and puts put in some hours to getting
things right not only that they've
changed the presentation of their work
in number of ways most recently we
completed a project at port Miami where
we wrapped 18 parking ticket booths with
images of these zoanthids that they have
been documented native to Miami
it starts on this very beautiful
aesthetic level and then it goes deeper
into informing people a little bit more
about the things that are growing around
the port September of 2010 we were asked
by Naomi Fisher and Jim drain whether we
would be interested in being a stop on
their weird Miami tours my wife and I
went on a tour called a weird Miami tour
I didn't know where we were going one of
the places we went to was the home of
these two guys um who were growing coral
the foyer the dining room the living
room the sunroom were beds of coral and
I looked at it and I thought okay this
this qualifies as weird Miami and they
showed a video that they had taken for
me was there when you have that aha
moment we had these projections on the
wall and it's like is this something
that you could do for Art Basel
and what it does is it just makes you
think about where you are it's unusual
it's out of place and yet when you think
about it it's totally in its place they
were here first
very early on the idea of projecting
corals on to limestone was a really
important part of our artistic practice
the cement and the limestone
that comprised the buildings of Miami is
actually fossilized coral from eons past
when Miami was underwater if we went
outside I have beautiful Keystone
decking there and many buildings facades
in South Florida are covered with it and
it is basically coral reef about a
hundred and twenty-five thousand years
old when the sea level was higher in
about 30 to 40 feet higher to project
the corals back onto these buildings one
it references the geologic past it
references the technological present
that we're in and then it also
references a potential future where if
sea levels continue to rise
corals would have absolutely no problem
coming right back in and cementing
themselves on themselves yeah
Harold do you remember do you
we made this film called the coral reef
or Jamaica wherein we grew some live
corals on some skulls in the lab and
then took time-lapse photography of the
corals kind of looming and closing it
takes place hundreds of years in the
future after Miami's completely
underwater and it's about the corals
living on our bones in the same way that
we live on their bones now
it's part of our story as a city it's
developing you know that this whole
thing is a giant bed of coral that used
to be underwater and you might go back
in I mean that's kind of that's a good
story it's a it's poetic in a funny way
you