Building an undersea world! Art Workshop for all ages

Saturday 31st May 12-2pm

Come along Golden Thread Gallery to learn about deep-sea coral & marine life and create your own unique coral creature to be part of a virtual reality ocean landscape!

Participants will receive a voucher for taking part.

Artist Lauren Moffatt will introduce the incredible world of deep-sea coral reefs and the many kinds of sea creatures and marine life that live on and around them. She will also explain how AI, or artificial intelligence, works.

You will be invited to imagine and draw your own unique deep-sea coral creature and record a musical or spoken note that they could sing under the sea.

The imaginary creatures and their accompanying sounds will be collected by Lauren. Over the next 12 months, she will gather designs from workshops to eventually become part of a vast virtual reality deep-sea coral reef.

Please note: there are just 20 places for this workshop, please book here.

Parents / carers are required to supervise their children during the workshop.

Virtual Reality Reef

The reef landscape will be partly created using an AI programme, over several months. By the end of the project, Lauren intends for it to become an immersive VR experience which people can ‘visit’.

In this virtual reality deep-ocean landscape, visitors will discover a junkyard teeming with things dumped under the sea by human industry, like car wrecks, construction scaffolds, and shipping containers. But life under the sea is strong… alongside ruin, there is rebirth!

Visitors will see that coral has encrusted the human-made junk and transformed it into a vibrant underwater ecosystem, home to all kinds of marine creatures. They can experience the beautiful colours and sound harmonies of an ocean floor landscape that would be impossible to visit in real life. And they will meet some of the coral creatures imagined in the workshops and hear their accompanying sounds!

In the real world, human-built items like decommissioned subway carriages have successfully been used under the sea as artificial ‘foundations’ to support new coral reefs. They make a solid base for the coral to grow on and spread over.

This project aims to show that with imagination and hope, there could be ways in the future for humans and non-humans to co-exist and sustain each other, including using technology differently.

Background to the project

This workshop at the Golden Thread Gallery is one of several taking place across the UK. It is part of a S+T+ARTS4Water II Challenge and STARTS Residency research project called ‘Chorcorallium / Córcoral’ exploring parallels between the hidden depths of the ocean and the unseeable, often opaque processes of artificial intelligence.

Chorcorallium highlights the possibility of building regenerative futures on the ruins of human activity. The project emphasizes the feasibility of repurposing human waste into ecosystems that sustain marine life. At the same time, the project will examine ethical questions around the use of AI.

For example, AI risks worsening overconsumption, mines content created by others, and uses huge amounts of energy, causing environmental harm. But it is also a tool with the potential to expand our imaginations and creativity in addressing the global climate emergency. Scientists and researchers can use it to experiment with new tech, create virtual test conditions or ‘visit’ places that can’t be done safely in real life.

Through an engaging and accessible VR experience, Chorcorallium presents a future where human and non-human technologies coexist symbiotically. The project fosters dialogue about deep-sea reef ecosystems, sustainable energy, and the ethical use of AI, all while inviting audiences to imagine innovative solutions to ecological challenges.

This work was commissioned within the framework of the S+T+ARTS 4Water II residency programme by ADAPT Centre at Dublin City University and Beta Festival with the support of Belfast Harbour, Maritime Mile, Belfast City Council, Digital Artists Studio (DAS) Belfast and the S+T+ARTS programme of the European Union.

Accessibility

Workshops take place in our Hub on the ground floor of the gallery, with step-free ramp access. There is a wheelchair-accessible bathroom on the ground floor.

Golden Thread Gallery is supported by: