Aqua Garden Flow, our audiovisual collaboration with Laraaji and Robert Beatty first presented live in concert this past May at the Miami Beach Bandshell, is here to stream! Watch the official film free @ https://vimeo.com/showcase/aquagardenflow
The ‘Coral Cosmos’ Cropped Top Rash Guard and Surf Bottom, featuring a Platygyra sp. coral.
Shop the Natasha Tonić x Coral Morphologic Coral City collection @ https://natashatonic.com/collections/coral-city
The ‘Flower Animal’ One Piece Swimsuit, featuring a Zoanthus sp. soft coral.
The three coral prints featured in the collection are original photos taken in the Coral Morphologic studio / lab. The entirety of the Coral City collection is made with certified organic hemp, cotton, and natural fibers.
Each item purchased will plant one coral on the reef in Bali with the non-profit organization Ocean Gardener.
The ‘Coral Dream’ One Piece Swimsuit, featuring a Dipsastraea sp. coral.
Watch the full Coral City collection runway show @ Paraiso Miami Beach here.
Read interviews on the collection with the Miami New Times and Time Out.
Natasha Tonić x Coral Morphologic Coral City collection runway show at Paraiso Miami Swim Week 2023.
We are proud to have debuted a new swimwear collaboration with Natasha Tonić at Paraiso Miami Swim Week 2023. Watch the full runway show live from the Paraiso fashion tent, which ran on Sunday, June 11, 2023.
Since their first collection in 2017, Natasha Tonić has led the swimwear industry towards an organic future by utilizing hemp fabrics because microplastics from nylon and other petroleum-based synthetic fabrics are an increasing concern to ocean health. With the Coral City collection, NT takes the commitment to sustainability one step further by planting one coral for every swimsuit purchased. Pieces in the collection feature coral designs inspired by our coral photography and the Coral City Camera.
Corals will be planted to the reefs of Bali by Indonesian non-profit Ocean Gardener, who have developed a restoration technique that uses organic ropes and wooden stakes to restore damaged reefs without the use of plastics.
Shop the Coral City collection @ https://natashatonic.com/collections/coral-city
A supercut of the show.
Swimwear design by Natasha Tonić ~ Video and prints by Coral Morphologic ~ Soundtrack by Kimi Recor ~ Jewelry by Tiffany Kunz ~ Hair by Kevin Murphy ~ Makeup by New York Makeup Academy ~ Production by Paraiso Miami Beach and Funkshion. Full show credits here.
On Sunday, May 21st, the live audiovisual experience that was Aqua Garden Flow gently pulsed in and out of the historic Miami Beach Bandshell like a jellyfish on the tide. Laraaji and Arji OceAnanda‘s shimmering, joyous score of the film we created with Robert Beatty navigated mangrove stands, seagrass beds, and labyrinths of coral caves to arrive at a journey’s end shared by hundreds—one that felt like the beginning of a new era for Coral Morphologic.
We wish heartfelt thanks to Laraaji, Arji, Robert, and the team at the Rhythm Foundation / Miami Beach Bandshell for an amazing creative collaboration, immersive production, and fit venue for us all to witness Aqua Garden Flow come to life.
Post-Aqua Garden Flow bliss. Laraaji, Colin Foord, Robert Beatty, J.D. McKay, and Arji OceAnanda.
We and Rhythm Foundation are proud to announce Aqua Garden Flow, a special live audiovisual performance from legendary ambient musician Laraaji accompanied by Coral Morphologic films with animations by Robert Beatty, on Sunday, May 21st, 2023 at the Miami Beach Bandshell. Laraaji, joined by Arji OceAnanda, will perform Aqua Garden Flow, a new piece of music composed to the films of Coral Morphologic. This landmark performance is the inaugural installment in a new series of live audiovisual ambient collaborations from the Miami Beach Bandshell and Coral Morphologic as part of the Bandshell Laboratories initiative. Join us for an unforgettable, transcendent experience of healing music and film.
Purchase tickets to Aqua Garden Flow @ https://link.dice.fm/ka349b2f5bbf
Singer Achinoam “Noa” Nini Barak performing at the I Sea You concert.
We are excited to have contributed our imagery to the official opening concert of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2023 in Davos, entitled I Sea You, which was a powerful cultural message of unity and collaboration, as well as a call to action to protect and preserve the resilient coral reefs of the Northern Red Sea.
Watch the full concert below and visit the World Economic Forum website to learn more @ https://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2023/sessions/i-sea-you
Watch the full Projections of a Coral City program above.
The sun has set on Projections of a Coral City, our largest installation to date, and we are thankful for everyone who made this monumental work possible. From the Knight Foundation’s continued support of our mission, to the collaborative spirit of the Arsht Center, to the hundreds of thousands of people who witnessed this installation: we are eternally grateful.
Projections of a Coral City was the 15-year culmination of our goal to create a new mythology for the city of Miami — one that tells the story of past, present, and future sea-level rise and fall and the ouroboros of architectural development — of the ancient coral reef tract’s calcium carbonate structures and its re-use millennia later in concrete skyscrapers of present day. We hope that Projections of a Coral City shed light on the sea-level rise projections referenced in the project’s title, and how the City’s buildings and infrastructure might be reclaimed by coral as an artificial reef should humanity not act to prevent and mitigate the effects of climate change, to which Miami is among the most vulnerable cities on Earth.
Special Thanks to the Knight Foundation, whose generous support made POACC possible; the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, who graciously hosted the event; the dream team of creatives that helped us bring POACC to life; and Light Harvest / A3 Visual for the absolutely stunning projection display.
Please see the Projections of a Coral City website for full info and production credits @ https://projectionsofacoralcity.com/
Read coverage of Projections of a Coral City from the Miami Herald.
We are ecstatic to announce Projections of a Coral City, a large-scale projection-mapping installation to be presented on the exterior of the Knight Concert Hall nightly, 6PM-12AM, during Miami Art Week from Tuesday, November 29 through Saturday, December 3, 2022. Projections of a Coral City, featuring macroscopic images of corals native to Miami and from around the world, is a monumental artwork and the largest projection of corals ever presented globally. Projections of a Coral City is made possible through the support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Miami is a coral city. Built with marine limestone mined from the Everglades, its concrete skyline stands like corals colonizing the fossilized reef ridge on which the city was built. Miami and its maritime environment are inextricably connected geologically, historically, culturally and economically. Engaging residents and visitors with Miami’s coral reefs and waters connects them to the literal foundation of the city and to its future.
The corals featured in Projections of a Coral City were grown on flat tiles and 3D-printed scale models of the Knight Concert Hall over many years in our Miami laboratory, and subsequently photographed and enlarged to envelop the building’s southwest side. These aquacultured corals include the colorful, native Ricordea florida corallimorph. Corallimorphs are an understudied group of soft corals that scientists predict will proliferate in a world where oceans are acidified and stony corals can no longer calcify into reefs. Projections of a Coral City reimagines the Knight Concert Hall’s terraced form designed by architect César Pelli as an ever-morphing coral head and, as the sea-level rise projections referenced in the project’s title portend, suggests how the City’s buildings and infrastructure might be reclaimed by coral as an artificial reef should humanity not act to prevent and mitigate sea-level rise.
An ambient soundscape foreshadowing the City’s future by Coral Morphologic and Nick León will play in tandem with the projections on the Arsht Center’s Thomson Plaza for the Arts on Biscayne Boulevard.
For more information and production credits, please visit the Projections of a Coral City website @ https://projectionsofacoralcity.com/
Threshold: a series of gently-swaying coral archways lead departing passengers from land to sea.
We are excited to unveil Threshold, a new Coral Morphologic video work and our second public art installation at PortMiami. Threshold was commissioned by Miami-Dade Art in Public Places in conjunction with Virgin Voyages for the recently-built Terminal V. Take a quick tour below:
We are excited to present Illuminating Coral, an eight-episode educational course created with our longtime collaborator John McSwain during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The course, made exclusively with Parley for the Oceans, dives into the lives’ of coral, sheds light on their vital role in our global ecosystem, and offers solutions on how humans and coral can live in symbiosis both now and in the future. Watch Illuminating Coral in full via the Parley Ocean School @ https://edu.parley.tv/course/illuminating-coral/
Miami aka Coral City.
Coral Morphologic will be proudly representing Miami’s underwater denizens at the inaugural Aspen Ideas: Climate conference, May 9-12 with a nightly showing of our film Coral City Fluorotour on the New World Center’s wallcast and speaking on the panel ‘The Ocean is a Climate Superhero.’
The morning of Wednesday, May 11th Colin will join Swati Thiyagarajan and Barton Seaver in conversation on how the ocean is poised to be a hero in the fight against climate change, with natural systems that help undo the damage human activity has caused.
Wallcast showings of Coral City Fluorotour follow the evening speaking sessions, beginning at 8pm, and are free and open to the public. For more information, programming, and to obtain passes, please visit www.aspenideasclimate.org
A still from Coral City Fluorotour. Fluorescent staghorn coral at the Coral City Camera site.
We are proud to present Coral City Flourotour, our first short film in 3 years, and our first in-ocean filming project using techniques developed in the CM lab / studio. Coral City Flourotour documents the highly fluorescent corals living near the Coral City Camera site at PortMiami.
These urban corals are not just survivors, but pioneers who have self-recruited to the boulder shoreline deployed to the Port in 2010. Some of the larger brain corals featured were previously transplanted from other urban habitats by Miami-Dade County DERM. Coral Morphologic has documented 27 of Florida’s 48 stony coral species living at this site, as well as more than 170 species of fish documented via the CCC.
Critically endangered staghorn corals (Acropora cervicornis) were transplanted to the site in June 2021 by University of Miami’s Rescue a Reef program. The fluorescence survey conducted in this film revealed they’ve activated fluorescent proteins which are not normally expressed in offshore waters. Scientists from UM and NOAA are now seeking to understand what changes these corals have undergone adapting to life in such an anthropogenically-altered environment, as it may have larger implications related to the restoration of Floridian and Caribbean reefs. Recently published research by NOAA has discovered the corals living in these urbanized environments have made important adaptations that enable them to thrive in Miami’s coastal waters.
Special Thanks to Bridge Initiative, Bas Fisher Invitational, PortMiami, Biscayne Bay Pilots, Miami-Dade County, NOAA AOML, Rescue a Reef
We are excited to be included in ‘Un lago de jade verde‘ – the inaugural exhibition by the Institute for Postnatural Studies. Our film Natural History Redux will be on display as part of the show from October 14, 2021 – March 13, 2022. The exhibition is located on the 5th floor of the CentroCentro cultural center in Madrid, Spain.
“A Green Jade Lake is envisioned as an experiential journey that invites the visitor to wander through its different rooms and landscapes and to reflect on the idea of nature in the contemporary moment. In a situation of ecological fragility, we need to rethink the relationships and flows that are established between humans, ecosystems and their environments, and to take into consideration the new complexities that exist between the natural and the artificial.
Taking the image of a forest as its starting point, as the threshold beyond which categories become entwined, the exhibition includes experience, fiction, artistic work and research to allow us to explore new ways in which we can interact with the planet. Addressing different subjects such as coexistence, botany, territorial policies or the aesthetics associated with the representation of nature, the exhibition is understood as a constellation that creates open and transformative universes.
This exhibition proposes a new contemporary approach to nature in which all audiences, all bodies and all voices can participate.”
Artists: Coral Morphologic, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Fabian Knecht, Geocinema, Gerard Ortín Castellví, Jana Winderer, Jessica Sarah Rinland, Jonathas de Andrade, Lola Zoido, Maria Nolla, Mauricio Freyre, Michael Wang, Mónica Mays, Tomás Díaz Cedeño, Ursula Biemann, +
Update 1/13/22: View and download the ‘Un lago de jade verde’ exhibition book @ https://www.centrocentro.org/sites/default/files/2023-01/Un_lago_de_jade_verde.pdf
We are proud to announce the official launch of the Coral City Camera, an underwater camera streaming live from our joint urban coral research site with NOAA’s AOML Coral Program. Watch the CCC live at coralcitycamera.com, and for a soundtrack to accompany the view, listen to the Coral City Camera mix series.
We kicked off the launch with a party at Pérez Art Museum on the Miami waterfront. Romulo Del Castillo provided the Miami jams following a panel discussion led by National Geographic explorer Alizé Carrère featuring Colin, NOAA scientist Dr. Ian Enochs, and Miami Beach’s environment & sustainability director Elizabeth Wheaton.
Massive Thanks to our CCC collaborators Bridge Initiative and Bas Fisher Invitational, NOAA’s AOML Coral Program, Reuben Molinares, who created the CCC website with art by Brian Butler, and the myriad of supporters who made this project a reality.
The CCC floating on Biscayne Bay – 2.6.20.
Update 6/1/20: The CCC is now screening at the Miami International Airport as part of the Miami International Airport Moving Images (MIAmi) video installation series, located near gate J7:
Update 10/16/20: The CCC is now screening at the HistoryMiami Museum.
Update 12/9/20: The CCC has been named ‘Best Public Art’ in Miami New Times’ Best of Miami 2020 issue.
Update 12/1/21: The CCC is now screening at University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum:
For Design Miami 2019/, we debuted a preview of the Coral City Camera, a 360° live stream underwater camera located at our collaborative research site with NOAA’s AOML Coral Program. The CCC aims to supplement our urban coral research with real-time scientific data and offer a source of natural wonderment to the public, with the live stream officially going live in February 2020.
The implementation of the Coral City Camera is made possible with the support of Bas Fisher Invitational & the Bridge Initiative under National Endowment for the Arts & Knight Foundation grants.
We are happy to report the new adidas flagship store in London features a Coral Morphologic video installation. Follow this link for the adidas_LDN location on Oxford Street and watch a tour of the store here.
We are thrilled to share a mini-documentary Instagram produced on our work. Watch above or via the app.
We are thrilled to share we’ll be curating ‘An Evening with Coral Morphologic‘ at the historic Tower Theater Miami on April 30th. In addition to inaugurating Tower’s new lobby projection system with a CM audiovisual installation, we’ll be showing a film program in the theater consisting of Miami’s first official Tangerine Reef screening, John McSwain’s CM documentary Coral City, and a Q & A session with CM, McSwain, and Brian Weitz of Animal Collective moderated by Miami-based writer and photographer Monica Uszerowicz.
The event is free and open to the public but we kindly ask patrons to RSVP at this link. The audiovisual installation/ happy hour runs 5-7pm, and the film program/ Q & A runs 7-9pm. We will have a version of the poster above for sale at the event, designed by Rob Carmichael of SEEN Studio.
Update 5/1/19: Our audiovisual installation in the theater’s lobby will run till early December – if you are in the area feel free to stop in and check it out.
Avey Tare, Geologist, and Deakin performing Tangerine Reef live.
This past Saturday, Animal Collective and we debuted the live version of Tangerine Reef at David Lynch’s Festival of Disruption. Aquatic sights and sounds enmeshed to immerse the audience of Brooklyn Steel in the extraterrestrial underwater environ of Tangerine Reef.
Thank you to David Lynch for inviting us and the Festival of Disruption team for an amazing production. Stay tuned for the official release of Tangerine Reef this August.
The Tangerine Reef crew: Avey Tare, John McSwain, Deakin, J.D. McKay, Geologist, and Colin Foord.
Check out photosets from the live performance of Tangerine Reef via Brooklyn Vegan & The Line of Best Fit.
During the 2018 NBA All-Star weekend, adidas held a two-day celebration of basketball culture at ROW DTLA in Los Angeles. The event, called 747 Warehouse St, brought together creators from the worlds of sports, music, fashion and design. To represent the oceans and rally new champions for the cause, Parley created an adidas X Parley X Coral Morphologic experience focused on the beauty and fragility of the oceans, featuring a CM video installation aimed at generating environmental awareness. Watch a highlight video from the event below.
Catch our new audiovisual piece 2317 projection-mapped onto the facade of the Faena Forum during Miami Art Week 2017, as part of the ‘Ediacaran Mind’ exhibition. 2317 is visible nightly starting at sundown & shows Monday, December 4th – Saturday, December 9th.
Thanks to everyone that attended the Coral Orgy this past Friday, February 24th at the New World Center on Miami Beach. Coral Orgy was a site-specific audiovisual collaboration by Coral Morphologic and Animal Collective on the cosmic secrets behind the sexual reproduction of corals. Coral Morphologic proposes that unlocking the secrets of coral reproduction is a culminating achievement in humankind’s quest for colonization of planet Earth, and a first step towards restoring a healthy biosphere.
Animal Collective performed an hour of new music inspired by the reefs while Coral Morphologic projections painted a cosmic world of fluorescent coral inside the Frank Gehry-designed concert hall.
We are grateful to have been able to include footage of one of the first predicted stony coral spawns in captivity from Project Coral at the Horniman Museum. This advancement in coral reproduction (led by aquarist Jamie Craggs) is evidence that humanity is finally crossing this all-important milestone at just the critical juncture when the world’s coral reefs are ailing most. We are proud to support the work of SECORE and the Coral Restoration Foundation, and were thrilled to be able to display their footage of corals spawning in nature across the New World Center’s 7,000 square foot video projection wall in SoundScape Park prior to the main event.
Robert Rauschenberg’s Fish House on Captiva Island, Florida.
Colin recently took part in a 15-day residency at the former home and studio of artist Robert Rauschenberg on Captiva Island, Florida. The residency was the second edition of the ‘Rising Waters Confab’, which aims to “spark new thinking and to influence civic will toward finding and spreading solutions to the rising waters of climate change. This movement is a collective effort guided by a diverse array of artists and writers in a spirit of collaboration with scientists, activists, advocates, philanthropists, and island dwellers.”
Colin spent his time on Captiva screen printing a collection of new work on Rauschenberg’s press, taking photographs of the island’s breathtaking views overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, and working with artists, scientists, architects, and writers on interdisciplinary approaches to tackling climate change. Read the residencies’ blog here.
We’re psyched to share a soundtrack of ours (‘Strand’) is part of Other Electricities‘ new “call and response” LP, where Emile Milgrim and T. Wheeler Castillo’s Floridian field recordings are included in original and remixed forms. Stream Archival Feedback via Spotify and pick up the album in digital and vinyl / deluxe editions @ https://other-electricities.bandcamp.com/album/archival-feedback
Flower Animal exhibition at Miami International Airport, 2014. Photos: Oriol Tarridas.
We are proud to share that Miami International Airport/ MIA Galleries has unveiled an 80-foot spread featuring selections from our local marine life photography collection, Flower Animal. The exhibition is comprised of eleven metallic-paper, diasec-mounted prints, and is located in the Concourse D.
Update 2018: As of 2018, Flower Animal now resides in Concourse E/ International Arrivals.
A Coral Reef City vinyl-wrapped parking booth at PortMiami, 2014. Photo: Gesi Schilling.
Earlier this year we teamed with artist and friend Bhakti Baxter to wrap 18 parking booths at PortMiami with colorful vinyl, vividly depicting portraits of Miami’s now-iconic soft corals, Zoanthids. Coral Reef City was commissioned by Miami-Dade Art in Public Places and will remain at the port through 2024, welcoming 4 million visitors annually.
Update 2015: We are honored to announce that the project was awarded among the best public art projects in the nation by Americans for the Arts as part of their Public Art 2014 Year in Review.
Coral Morphologic is proud to announce the digital release of the remixed and remastered Natural History Redux today, March 6, 2014. NHR compiles our original Natural History series of videos (that were previous only available online individually in 720p) into a digital 1080p collector’s edition. NHR sees these 23 films hypnotically datamoshed together into a half-hour odyssey of the sea. Watch the official film free above, @ https://vimeo.com/showcase/naturalhistoryredux, or purchase the film @ coralmorphologic.bigcartel.com/product/natural-history-redux-digital-hd-film
The release of Natural History Redux represents the closing of the early chapters of Coral Morphologic. The ‘Natural History’ series represents our early ‘demos’, as the acquisition of the landmark Canon 5D Mark II in 2009 had suddenly made high-definition macro videography an affordable prospect for us. At that time we were still based out of our original home-based lab, where we made do with miniaturized aquarium sets that we hand-crafted in DIY spirit, challenging ourselves to make living portraits of our local invertebrate marine life. Colin did the filming, and J.D. composed original soundtracks (except ‘Man O War’ which was scored by Animal Collective’s Geologist) to accompany each film. We charged ourselves to film and release a new portrait every week on this blog, which for the most part we delivered under self-imposed Monday morning deadlines. After filming ‘Man O War’ we found ourselves in a position where we felt constrained by our home-based lab, and took the gamble to move into a dedicated facility where we could expand our vision. It would be another two years before we had the time or resources to film anything new (the new Lab was considerably more expensive to set up and operate). 3 years later, we are pleased to offer a remixed and remastered compilation of these films as an audio-visual album. Enjoy!
At last month’s screening of the FUTUREHISTORY program, we debuted Into the Cosmic Flower Garden, a triumphant ode to the sex cycle of the Phymanthus crucifer sea anemone, as well as a remixed compilation of Jean Painlevé’s seminal aquarium-based films. Enjoy!
Join us this Thursday, December 13th for a night of underwater films at the New World Center’s SoundScape Park on Miami Beach. At 7,00 Square-feet, the NWS WallCast is the largest projection wall in North America, and is accompanied by a state-of-the-art immersive sound system. This night will feature the first-ever screening of our ‘Natural History’ series from 2009-2011 in its entirety, followed by the world premiere of a new film, Into the Cosmic Flower Garden. The event is outdoors and tickets are free – bring your sensory perceptions, and enjoy the experience.
Cuddle Fish is the creation of Miami contemporary artist Bhakti Baxter. The limited-edition zine, also compiled and printed by Baxter, features images contributed by a collection of his peers. The cover image is a Sepia sp. Cuttlefish that Colin photographed back in 2007 in Tulamben, Bali. You can find this zine in physical form at happenings around Miami during Art Basel Miami Beach 2009.
CORAL MORPHOLOGIC Art Basel Miami Beach 2009 schedule:
American Airlines Arena – Jumbotron Projection
Miami’s Independent Thinkers – Aquarium Installation
The Museo Vault – Aquarium Installation
Moksha Art Fair – Projection
Sweat Records – Aquarium Installation
