BEFORE, THE HERE & AFTER

Abandoned and discarded ghost nets linger in oceans across the planet. Faithfully performing their function, they fill and fall and rise and fill and fall and rise. Autonomous, 15 meters in depth 56 miles wide. These nomadic nets ghost fish our seas without human influence or supervision, a cyclical existence of life and death. Weighted by a catch no one wants, in a loop that could last 600 years.

The projection is primarily autonomous, the forms are born from a set of conditions set to create their own life cycle.
Their behavior is cyclical, they mimic the ghost nets. They linger in this space, they have life and death, they too could last for hundreds of years.

The soundscape influences some behavior, it is an environment for generative art. Collaged from field recordings taken around Bexhill with generative melodies constructed by Ian Carter and Nicola Kearey from the band Stick in the Wheel.

This is our first commissioned generative artwork, and it ran for 3 hours in @St.BarnabasChurch Sea Road, in Bexhill. The work features layers of undulating and constantly evolving dynamic forms which take on the characteristics of netting suspended in deep water and detail that references marine life, it is inspired and informed by ‘Ghost Nets’ a man made threat to our seas and marine wildlife. The lost and discarded nets operate under a perpetual cycle of life and death as they rise and fall trapping and feeding and so we thought it fitting to reference them for a generative artwork as the two systems have some shared fundamental characteristics in that they are purely autonomous, they were created by humans but now they are self sufficient, their existence requires no human interference yet they can go on existing, constantly evolving, growing breaking down and repeating. We presented the work 10 meters tall right up in the ceiling of the church on a semi transparent black net which allowed the architecture and detail of the church to integrate with the image. The work is accompanied and partially driven by a soundtrack made by @stick_in_the_wheel

The installation was visited by over 1000 people during the festival, with many visitors taking to the seats provided and spending long periods of time with the piece. Social media comments about the work feature at the bottom of this page.

According to recent studies, ghost nets account for 30 to 50 per cent of all plastic waste in the oceans. More than 100 million pounds of commercial fishing gear is abandoned, lost, or discarded into the ocean every year. Ghost nets are made from synthetic fibers that are left drifting in the world’s oceans. These silent killers can travel vast distances and are difficult to track.

Before, The Here & After was commissioned by 18 Hours for Bexhill After Dark
Many thanks to: Mandy Curtis and team at 18Hours/ Russell Meredith, St.Barnabas Church/ White Ice Sounds/ Robert Sample/ Piotr Nierobisz