The Sufi poet is a fish thrown up on the beach, leaping and squirming to regain the ocean. He sees God everywhere and in everything, but he cannot find the gate of union. — Meher Baba
This diamond encrusted fish is today’s Fish of the Day.
Today, when I went swimming in the sea, the joke was on me. I was doing my normal route, just like every day–admiring the fish, polishing my strokes–and just as I was sailing away into my thoughts–I spotted it. Sitting on the floor of the sea–was a television–a giant one–a boob tube for the fish.
The fish swam in front of it, around it. Who had put it there? Who had taken the time to dump it overboard? I was used to swimming by the usual pollution–Pepsi cans, beer cans–but a television? And that’s when I got an idea–why not make an environmentally friendly art installation–under the sea?
Of course, underwater sculpture’s been done before. In fact, artist Jason de Caires Taylor has an underwater television piece, titled “El Coleccionista de los Sueños Perdidos”–which is one piece among 400 that he’s submerging near Cancun, Mexico to create the world’s largest underwater art museum.
Photo by Jason Decaires Taylor
The experience of being underwater is vastly different from that of being on land. There are physical and optical considerations that must be taken into account. Objects appear twenty five percent larger underwater, and as a consequence they also appear closer. Colours alter as light is absorbed and reflected at different rates, with the depth of the water affecting this further. The light source in water is from the surface, this produces kaleidoscopic effects governed by water movement, currents and turbulence. Water is a malleable medium in which to travel enabling the viewer to become active in their engagement with the work. The large number of angles and perspectives from which the sculptures can be viewed increase dramatically the unique experience of encountering the works. — Jason Decaires Taylor
Photo by Jason Decaires Taylor
To see more photographs of his underwater sculptures, please click here. As for me, I’m still dreaming up an installation of my own for Lebanon–under the sea…
