Chorcorallium is a speculative immersive experience that carries visitors to the ocean floor, a space of both ruin and rebirth. Within this virtual environment, participants encounter a junkyard of human industry—car wrecks, scaffolds, and shipping containers—gradually transforming into a vibrant underwater ecosystem. Coral encrusts these remnants, each one lending its voice to a cacophonic sound garden shaped by procedurally generated harmonies. The journey to the surface culminates in the realization that these corals thrive on the foundations of offshore wind turbines, merging human innovation with marine regeneration.
The project reflects on the parallels between the hidden depths of the ocean and the opaque processes of artificial intelligence. Just as the seafloor remains largely inaccessible, the mechanisms of AI resist comprehension. Chorcorallium invites audiences to consider this duality: AI’s capacity to accelerate overconsumption and environmental harm, and its simultaneous potential to expand imagination and creativity in response to global crises.
At the core of the work are participatory world-building workshops. Participants contribute prompts to generate coral species and the notes those corals will sing in the reef. These fictional organisms and their voices become part of the evolving installation, emphasizing collaboration and the possibility of regrowth.
By envisioning artificial reefs flourishing within wind farms, Chorcorallium highlights the potential for human infrastructure to entangle with non-human technologies. The project gestures toward futures where waste sustains life, while questioning technological pathways that risk further environmental collapse.
This work was realised in part within the framework of the S+T+ARTS 4Water II residency programme by the ADAPT Centre at Dublin City University and Beta Festival with the support from Belfast Harbour, Maritime Mile, Belfast City Council, Digital Artists Studio (DAS) Belfast and the S+T+ARTS programme of the European Union.
Lauren Moffatt is an Australian artist working with immersive environments and experimental narrative practices. Her works, often presented in hybrid and iterative forms, explore the paradoxical subjectivity of connected bodies and the indistinct boundaries between digital and organic life. She combines conventional, obsolete, and emerging technologies to construct universes that span both physical and virtual space. Lauren studied painting, new media theory and practice, and audiovisual creation at the College of Fine Arts (AU), Université Paris VIII (FR), and Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains (FR).
Her work has recently been exhibited at institutions and festivals such as Sónar (ES), Matadero Madrid (ES), Haus am Lützowplatz (DE), La Gaîté Lyrique (FR), SXSW (US), UNSW Galleries (AU), Daegu Art Museum (KOR), Le Grand Palais Éphémère (FR), SAVVY Contemporary (DE), FACT Liverpool (UK), the Sundance Film Festival (US), ZKM (DE), Q21 Freiraum (AT), and Hartware MedienkunstVerein (DE). She lives and works in Valencia.
Image credit: John D'Arcy
