Volcana Brainstorm

2019, participatory installation and performance, work in progress

Volcana Brainstorm  ・ ヴォルカナ  ブレインストーム
or, How to Make Shrimp Feel Sexy

For the Koganecho Bazaar festival's theme New Menagerie, this project involves the local community in creatively solving a current challenge of science. Our approach is speculative, poetic and humorous, but it is based in scientific research, and might even have implications for the future of life on Earth and beyond!
 
Volcana Brainstorm creates a diverse “think-tank” dedicated to brainstorming an intriguing challenge over six weeks. It climaxes in a collaborative show in a former-brothel-turned-gallery, presenting all the solutions we worked up during the Koganecho residency.
 
We are producing an exhibition/laboratory involving various forms of displays and events. The installation spans performance, video/audio, text, music, bio- and mechanical art, internet art, object design — because we approach our puzzle from many angles, using art-based lateral thinking to assist where science has gotten stuck.
 
Volcana Brainstorm’s unique and fascinating challenge takes into account the history of Koganecho as a red-light district, but its focus is playfully positioned in the (marine) animal world.

the problem   (‘pornography’ for shrimp?)

​The Ecosphere:
A blend of art and science, ecospheres
are small glass spheres containing closed ecological systems.
 
They are filled with sea water, active micro-organisms, small shrimp, algae and bacteria. All these things rely on each other — and only on each other — for food and sanitation. Their little worlds are completely self-sustaining, simply needing light (natural or artificial) to stay alive and nourished.
 
Ecospheres were invented in the 1960s, and since the 1980s scientists have used them to study how animal and plant life could help sustain humans in space exploration.

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Shrimp Will Not Reproduce! 
The shrimp in ecospheres is the Hawaiian red shrimp Halocaridina rubra.  It is native to small volcanic pools containing both fresh water and salt water. It is chosen because it is tough and adaptable, and it lives for a long time.
 
But, despite biologists’ best efforts, everything self-sustains within the ecosphere except the shrimp, which will not procreate and reproduce, even though everything else is in balance. So, animal life does not continue indefinitely.
 
The reason for the shrimp’s continued refusal to mate in the ecosphere is currently unknown.

* How Can We Encourage Shrimp in Ecospheres to Reproduce?
* Why Don’t They Feel Sexy?
* What Would Make Them Feel Sexy?
 
Our “think-tank” sets out to empathise with these unsexy shrimp, and to conceptualize aids to rebalance the situation. While humorously one would think that this may take the form of some kind of pornography for shrimp (what would that be??), it should also address other important factors.

• Do they miss Hawaiian music or sounds or smell, or some kind of rumbling tension or underlying movement from volcanos?
• Could they be aware of being watched, and be shy?
• Do they want to feel that they choose their mate, rather than having no choice?
• Maybe the surface of the sphere’s glass makes them think that the reflections are kinds of virtual shrimp, and encourage a new, sexless lifestyle.
• Are the systems too monocultural?

Is something else confusing the shrimp? Or are they overly relaxed?

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Remind me that the most fertile lands were built by the fires of volcanoes.
Andrea/Andrew Gibson,  Vox Feminista

Credits
A list of participating artists will be published soon.

Commissioner
Koganecho Bazaar, Yokohama, Japan, 2019

Events
2019.07.16     Artist talk in BioClub Tokyo, 16 July 2019
2019.09.20   Opening | Koganecho Bazaar
2019.09.28   Volcana Brainstorm performance event, 6pm
2019.11.04     Closing | Koganecho Bazaar
More events including public discussions will be announced.

Links — 日本語 ・ Japanese
Volcana Brainstorm in Koganecho Bazaar 2019
Information briefing at Koganecho Area Management Center

thematics

​Though the scale of the inspiration is physically small, its resonance is big. The project Volcana Brainstorm has to do with future worlding. It shows that our interactions with each other shape the success of the planet.
 
If we were to solve the challenge of the ecosphere shrimp, we would literally create a new menagerie. They would be able to spawn future generations of Halocaridina rubra inside the sphere, materializing a science-fiction scenario by becoming a world-first contained, fabricated ecology.
 
The red shrimp’s ability to spawn future generations would help inform human strategies for survival in different types of climate emergency. It also informs research into survival off-planet, making intergalactic connections more possible.
 
Locally, the project also promotes conversations about Japan’s reducing population, the so-called “sexless Japan”. Why are the shrimp deciding not to procreate? Is there something we should change? Japan and Hawaii are both volcanic islands. Perhaps the solution to the shrimp’s physical arousal can be found here, in an old Japanese prostitution area in a land of volcanoes. 

Our big world is very like this little one, and we are very like the shrimp. But there is at least one major difference: Unlike the shrimp, we are able to change our environment.
Prof. Carl Sagan

By simply engaging with the problem of shrimp sex and letting our imaginations bubble like volcanoes, we approach the residency with very few boundaries and expectations. What will bubble up? How will we choose to approach the material? Who will be interested in our proposals? With whom should we connect, in terms of research and also of outreach and informing the public about the ideas? Who might we reach out to and inform about the project? Not just the typical fine arts audience, or even just the typical festival audience. This is all part of the brainstorm.
 
Evolution:  When the creators of an installation are not all artists, the exhibit may take unexpected forms, incorporate diverse perspectives and cultural beliefs, and be suitable for unexpected places. There is not a standard separation between artist and audience. Visitors to the Bazaar can also contribute to the work’s evolution. At the exhibition site/s we have a method for the general public to leave their own suggestions (some kind of ‘suggestion sphere’) about the problem, or to build on an idea that they see at KB. They can also engage through discussions.
 
Mutuality:  The resident artist hereby surrenders authorship to the group, and the group incorporates authors beyond the group. We challenge established frameworks of both display and inspiration. We want to help our shrimp friends, and we create a network of support for them. This network is hypothetically unlimited. It draws energy from the sexy location of the brainstorm’s hub, with the Bazaar at the centre of the storm. It connects to the wider world via interdisciplinary relationships, connecting problems that are miniature; local; national; global; and galactic.