This project will create a community platform for artists working in the field of Anthropocenic Art and Design, providing a crowd/cloud data exchange network for information exchange, for the practice of micro-farming.

A range of modular kits will be developed that incorporate aquaculture (fish farming), hydroponics (water-based agriculture) and desalination methods of small scale farming.  The kits are developed to adapt to a range of bespoke geographic locations and ecological conditions, and are monitored by a custom sensing device. The sensing devices provide real time sensory data from each kit/location, which will be used to optimise agricultural conditions and as input for a live coded audiovisual performance.

These data can be used to compare geographical regions and climates, to track changes in conditions over time, for observations and storytelling, but also to facilitate artistic outputs. This will allow for artists, plants and aquatic creatures, to communicate in new and more symbiotic and empathetic ways, merging natural systems, data systems and social exchange networks with art and design.

The project was conceived at the MIT Global Community Bio Summit in October 2018 and is supported by V2_ Lab for Unstable Media. It is inspired by the recent explosion of agricultural technologies and methods in the Netherlands such as saltwater farming and builds on current artistic discourse in relation to ecology, the Anthropocene and agency.

The preliminary responses to this project have been fantastic with several organisations committing to host kits and contribute to this project, including organisations in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Guadalajara, Linz, Bristol, Perth, Florence and Corfu