The FlowILM event series is produced by the Coaction Lab at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and hosted by the Cameron Art Museum. This free event series features an array of artists, scientists, local non-profits and UNCW labs / programs focused on local / global water issues, including educational and family oriented activities and more. The arts portion of the event features live performance, dance, sculpture, installation and light / sound work. The third annual event will expand on the first two year’s event themes, adding more art, science, and ecology groups from across our community. Participating organizations will share their research and creativity with an array of family friendly activities, throughout the day running with the main art events running from sunset into the evening . This community art event is committed to articulating the un/stable relationships between organisms, environments, and technology. Participants are invited to meander the museum grounds and interior experiencing the symbiotic worlds of art and science in collaboration. Bridging the visible and invisible, inner and outer, macro to micro, local to regional to national to global. Artists, scientists and our community seek empathy for and awareness of our relationships with the organisms and ecosystems that we depend on and that depend on us to help maintain a sense of balance in the face of uncertainty.
For the first FlowILM event in 2021 there was one main project / performance untitled at the time but recognized as a “Pre-Biota” project, featuring dance by Janice Lancaster, sound by Kimathi Moore and Projected Imagery by Jeremy Roberts & Gene A. Felice II. This group of Interdisciplinary artists and scientists collaborated with the Algae Society www.algaesociety.org to plan their first live event and installation since lock down. Aquatic organisms unique to the Cape Fear River and coastal ecosystems were projection-mapped onto the museum’s exterior walls and landscapes, interfacing with the manifold silhouettes, shadows, and movements of a lone dance artist in this pod of collaboration, connected through the medium of sound. They prepared by familiarizing themselves with the biological forms and locomotion of freshwater, marine, and human biomes. While some pump and flagellate, others perpetually float, like phytoplankton drifters riding the oceanic and freshwater currents. Water samples and data from the museum’s pond and our surrounding community make the invisible visible through projected digital light and scales of magnification.
