By Coral Morphologic Creators

From December 2-5, we (Coral Morphologic) presented Artificial Reef, a series of large-scale video projections of corals, on three prominent buildings on Miami Beach.  The project (facilitated by a grant from Knight Foundation) was meant to highlight the original living artforms of Miami Beach: corals. In fact, having been built atop a fossilized reef, the city’s buildings and infrastructure are largely constructed of coral reef-derived limestone for its concrete. Our goal was to ‘encrust’ and ‘colonize’ these buildings with colorful marine life, much like they would the rocks of the reef.  The projections, in a way, resurrected the reef that is Miami Beach.  After all, coral reefs are essentially elaborate urban systems where symbiosis, opportunism, and complex interdependence create the foundation.

In ‘Cassiopeia,’ (above)  a 25’ photosynthetic jellyfish towered over Lincoln Road, pulsing rhythmically like a snowflake with a heartbeat. The north wall of the Wolfsonian Museum provided the perfect habitat for ‘Helios’; a near symmetrical colony of bright orange sun coral.  It twitched and undulated much like it would do growing on a vertical wall of an oil rig, shipwreck, or other man-made substrate that this invasive and opportunistic species prefers.

‘Helios’ | Wolfsonian Museum | Miami Beach – Dec. 2-5, 2010 from MORPHOLOGIC on Vimeo.

‘Clytie’ featured a living mosaic of fluorescent zoanthids (a type of soft coral native to Florida) that we had aquacultured in our lab onto a fossilized coral Keystone tile (the building material that put the ‘Coral’ in Coral Gables).  We selected the north wall of the Art Deco Welcome Center (1001 Ocean Drive) for ‘Clytie’ as it is constructed out of the same Keystone.  Just a stone’s throw from the beach, the wall of the ADWC  is prime real estate for future coral colonization.

‘Clytie’ | Lummus Park | Miami Beach – Dec. 2-5, 2010 from MORPHOLOGIC on Vimeo.

We held the reception for Artificial Reef in the gallery of the Art Deco Welcome Center in Lummus Park. The exhibit featured four high-definition screens displaying loops of our videos, along with a selection of fluorescent portraits of zoanthids from our Flower Animal series.  In the multi-media room, we projected ‘Carpet Morphology’ a time-lapse loop of a variety of Ricordea florida color morphs undulating on an 18’ screen.  At the reception, a collage of our videos, curated by artist Jamie Harley, was projected onto the musical duos Sumsun and ANR while they performed live ‘aquatic soundscapes’. The sounds bathed the audience like the warm, swirling waters enveloping a tropical reef.  Stay tuned for edited videos of these captivating musical performances in the near future.

It is Coral Morphologic’s long-term mission to reconnect the fluorescent spirit of the coral reef with the vibrant and colorful nature of Miami.  We believe that Artificial Reef took an important step in achieving that goal, and look forward to producing more public projects that reveal Miami as a unique coastal city harboring the secrets of synergy, symbiosis, and endless color.