‘Aquacultural Transformation’ Installation No. 1 at the Southeast Financial Center lobby, downtown Miami

In the first installment of our Knight Foundation-funded public art series Aquacultural Transformation, we have been commissioned by the owners of the Southeast Financial Center in downtown Miami to curate the new HD video-wall in the lobby. The video-wall is comprised of twenty-five 55″ screens, measuring 23′ x 14′ in total size, making it one of the largest HD walls in Florida. We have produced a series of coral films for Aquacultural Transformation that will run during the morning hours of 7-10 a.m for the next six months. Our goal was to create a Technicolor, aquatic ambiance in the lobby that engages and relaxes workers before the start of a hectic work day – therefore acting as an antidote against the 24-hour barrage of news and financial information that these workers are constantly subjected to. A primary component of the Aquaculture Transformation project is to convey that that the essence of the coral reef is literally infused into the concrete limestone infrastructure of every building in the Magic City. And thus the modern pop-cultural iconography of Miami is ultimately reflective of the neon diversity of our native coral reefs. This can be represented no better than the opening sequence to ‘Miami Vice’, in which the Southeast Financial Center is featured prominently in the last shot.

The Coral Morphologic Lab, circa 2012

This past weekend The Miami Herald published a print feature and interview with Colin on the future plans of Coral Morphologic. Click here to read the full story, authored by Kristofer Rios.

A fluorescent green flower anemone (Epicystis crucifer) releases sperm into the water column of an aquarium at the lab of Coral Morphologic.

On May 24th we observed this fluorescent green flower anemone (Epicystis crucifer) spawning in our lab, and managed to film the event. The anemone continued to release sperm for nearly 30 minutes, while several other nearby flower anemones released significantly smaller amounts of gametes. This was the second time we have witnessed a flower anemone spawning event at our lab this spring. We first observed a synchronous spawn of more than a dozen anemones in an outdoor aquaculture system that receives natural sunlight on April 12th. After the jump are photos of anemones spawning during this event.

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Coral Rekindling Venus trailer.

We are excited to share that Coral Morphologic has contributed film and images to Coral Rekindling Venus, a full-dome digital planetarium motion picture directed by artist Lynette Wallworth. Coral Rekindling Venus explores the magnificence of the coral reef and its organisms in a high definition, 360 degree view with a score including Antony Hegarty and Christian Fennesz. The film premieres in twenty-four (24) planetariums around the world on June 5th, which coincides with the Transit of Venus. The movie’s title equates the significance of coral reefs in the 21st century to this historic astronomical event.

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Morphologic is featured in the February 2012 edition of Ocean Drive Magazine. Click here to check out the digital version.

‘Pow Wow at the Morphologic Lab’
Interview: Jeff Jetton
Film + Soundtrack: Brendan Canty

During the week of Art Basel-Miami Beach 2011, we opened the doors of our aquaculture lab and welcomed guests to see our work and inspirations up close and personal. Jeff Jetton (Brightest Young Things) and Brendan Canty (Fugazi) were two of our guests from Washington, DC, and I was psyched to give them a detailed look at our lab, our ethos, and how we managed to develop a DIY hybrid science-art concept into reality.

We are proud and humbled to have the opportunity to release the final four recordings from the beloved and now-defunct Miami band Beings. The Social Creep EP is a 4-song, limited-edition run of 100 copies in glow-in-the-dark vinyl with sleeve art by the band, screen-printed in glow-in-the-dark ink by Iron Forge Press. We have rubber stamped our corallimorph logo onto both sides of the center-sticker by hand and numbered the a-side, both in silver ink. This is a special record.

Lester’s in Miami is graciously hosting the listening/ release party this Friday, December 9th as well as Laser Wolf in Ft. Lauderdale on Saturday, the 10th. We will have the record for sale for $15 at the parties. The remaining copies will be available at the Discosoma Records site beginning Monday, December 12th as well as Sweat Records in Miami and Radioactive Records in Ft. Lauderdale.

Click play to check out ‘Modern Crush’.