Neural Bloom#1
Interactive installation | 2025
Neural Bloom#1 is an installation that explores oxygen, carbon, and breath as shared processes–linking human presence with the life-sustaining dynamics of aquatic ecosystems. Inspired by the wetlands of the Danube Delta, the work brings to light the hidden cycles that support waterborne life: oxygen production, carbon capture, and the delicate equilibrium of respiration.
The installation consists of sculptural nodes that emit light, each representing a photosynthetic organism such as reeds, water lilies, hornwort, water chestnuts, or diatoms. These species play vital roles in aquatic health: they generate oxygen, filter nutrients, regulate temperature, and sequester carbon in sediment. In Neural Bloom, their ecological functions are translated into shifting rhythms of light. Each node responds to CO2 detected from a visitor’s breath, forming a responsive network that visually echoes the interplay between photosynthesis and respiration.
Framed through an ecofeminist lens, Neural Bloom considers air as a shared commons–and the atmosphere as a medium of relation. The installation invites a different kind of attention, one that values interdependence and care. Breath becomes not an assertion of presence, but a quiet act of connection. In this way, the work proposes a mode of sensing the world where human and more-than-human lives are understood as interlinked parts of a fragile and dynamic system.
