Diatomic States (2025),
Nuit Blanche TO x Design Exchange
Digital drawing, projection, kinetic sensor, soundscape, sensory seating, essential oil
40 ft high x 230 ft wide
With Dylan Alsop (@dylan.alsop) - creative coding/projection
& James Jordan (@baddmachine) - sound artist
Responding to Nuit Blanche 2025’s theme “Translating the City,” Diatomic States makes visible the microscopic ecosystem of diatoms, microscopic, single-celled phytoplankton essential for carbon capture and oxygen cycling, that inhabit bodies of water such as Toronto’s Harbourfront and Lake Ontario. Using an interactive, multisensory installation with a kinetic sensor that detects and responded to viewers’ movements in real time, Diatomic states pulls viewers into a macroscopic view of these microscopic beings to reflect on human impacts on invisible ecosystems that live within bodies of water.
What does it mean to listen to the landscape?
Translating Lake Ontario’s microscopic ecosystem, this project visualizes translating the city as going beyond human forms of communication to reimagine our relationship with nature.
Diatoms are microscopic single-cellular algae that inhabit lakes and oceans. One of the primary organisms responsible for atmospheric carbon capture, diatoms play a vital role in regulating climate systems. Diatoms regulate nutrient cycling and are a food source for other species in Lake Ontario (or Ontarí’io, Huron for “great lake”) and are highly susceptible to climate change. Diatoms are fundamental to life on Earth, and our collective survival is intrinsically linked to each other.