Kate Wing's Blog
You can touch this
March 4, 2008
Posted by Kate Wing in Reviving the World's Oceans
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of seeing "Deep Sea 3D" in its full 3-D IMAX glory. The opening shot is a glowing school of moon jellies floating towards you, and we all reached up our hands to touch the softly, pulsing domes as they drifted by. The divers in the room who'd swum through moon jellies in real life (moons don't pack the same paralyzing punch as other jellies) and were as transfixed as anyone by the virtual school. For millions of non-divers a movie like this may be the closest they ever get to the otherworldy part of our world, below the waves. It's an immersion unlike an aquarium or a Wii game.
But then today brings news of another way to hold the sea in your hands -- with a crochet hook. The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef held a 'knitshop' in New York over the weekend, where scientists and members of the Harlem Knitting Club came together to make sponges, urchins, and corals out of yarn. The reef just finished an exhibition in Chicago and moves to New York in April, by which time it will certainly be larger than its current 3,000 square feet (about 2% the size of the Great Barrier Reef). I'm pretty dreadful with a set of needles but I'm inspired to try a coral, or maybe some irish moss. Or perhaps venture into one of their side projects, like the Toxic Reef, which incorporates trash and plastic into the knitted creatures just as many live sea creatures do by eating the real plastic floating in the sea. Bad for the turtles who mistakenly fill up on plastic bags while seeking jellyfish. Though it appears toxic runoff may have some upsides for sexy males starlings (thanks, BoingBoing). I think I'd rather keep my reefs real and my art an homage to the living sea, not a historic diorama.
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