Whale Song: Installation in renovated ship brings sounds of the ocean to life

Saint Petersburg – The Whale is the latest installation from Tundra, an artistic collective made up of musicians, sound engineers, programmers and visual artists who have reimagined the inside of a whale.

Made for the Brusov, a renovated ship turned art cluster, The Whale is a site-specific installation that reimagines the inside of a whale as a honeycomb of twinkling cells.

The team have made use of the original Austrian design, attracted by the 1,400 hexagonal tiles that make up the ceiling. Using four ultra-short throw projectors, Tundra have designed an immersive lightshow consisting of five main audio-visual pieces that bring the sounds of the whale to life.

Visitors are invited to relax, lie back on the ground, look up and get lost in the rhythmical pulses, soothing ambient sounds and soft blue hues. The installation is also interactive and by placing your mobile on a black box in the centre of the room, you can affect the shapes and colours you see above you.

The Whale is reflective of our increasing preoccupation with a new urban wilderness where the lines between nature and technology are increasingly blurred. For more on how designers and artists are drawing on the interplay between nature and technology, read our Polarity Paradox macrotrend.