In 2009, an installation called Amphibious Architecture lit up the East River – and created a thought-provoking way for fish and humans to interact. Now the project is coming back on a grand scale.
This week’s New York Times Magazine profiles artist Natalie Jeremijenko and recalls her previous effort, which entailed dropping “16 tall buoys into the East River… fitted with submersible sensors that… flashed when fish swam by.” More important, the story details her new plans at Pier 35:
As part of the $160 million East River Waterfront Esplanade development project… “Amphibious Architecture” was set to return permanently to Manhattan, this time in a massive, 100-buoy iteration. At the Esplanade’s northernmost section, which will be known as the EcoPark, Jeremijenko and (architect David) Benjamin were also installing a newer piece called “Mussel Choir”: a glee club of bivalves that, with the aid of sensors and audio software, would “sing” about the quality of the water as they filtered it. Shown first at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale, the piece took on an added topicality after Hurricane Sandy, the ruinous effects of which may have been worsened by the depletion of bivalves along the city’s shorelines.
You can read the whole article here.
This week, we were told by the city that the Pier 35 eco-park is now scheduled to be finished in the spring of 2014.
