Water Body
Artists / Directors – Barney Steel, Ersin Han Ersin, Robin McNicholas – 2026 – UK – 25m
*****
A sensory experience centred around a moving image of the Thames as part of the global water network based on data sets – installation at St. Martin-in-the-Fields crypt 12:30-21:00 hours from Saturday, October 3rd to Sunday, October 18th as part of the London Film Festival’s LFF Expanded strand
A little waiting area shows a series of hand-crafted hangings by artist Elena Landinez showing various river tributaries before you enter the experience space proper. Before entering that space, you are alerted to the fact that the experience includes a total blackout section, also that there are pottery vessels handmade by ceramicist Ludmilla Balkis inside the space for you to take containing water that was cloud some two weeks ago, from which you can drink. Seating is mostly bean bags on the floor, and a single row of conventional seating at the back.
So I’m sitting on a seat at the back – or is it the back? – not really knowing what to expect. The lights go down: total blackout. All around me, sounds. (These started, I think, before the blackout, as if little rivulets of water were running somewhere.) These come from all around the sound field. The sound designer and composer for the piece is James Bulley.
I start to wonder if the whole thing is a visual blackout, with all the content in the sound. Unable to see anything and working by touch alone, I pick up my ceramic receptacle from the seat beside me, and take a small sip. Smell. Taste. This was a cloud two weeks ago. Strange. My ceramic (they are all individually hand-crafted) has a lip.
And then, in front of me, a square screen is illuminated by blue patterns in motion. I interpret it as abstract colour, and immediately think of a generic Mark Rothko painting, in front of which the viewer can sit and contemplate for minutes or hours.
Soon however, the patterns coalesce into a recognisable graphic, the undulating curves of the River Thames as it appears on a map, except that it’s not static, the water is moving, and the viewpoint is pulling out to reveal a bigger and bigger surface area. (The square of the screen, once it appears, remains the same size throughout.)
As the viewpoint moves – or, if you prefer, as the camera moves across the map – we see swirlings around the Thames estuary. Our point of view slowly pulls further away as we cross first Europe then more distant global reaches, until we are looking at the globe. Antarctica is at the centre, and it becomes evident that much of the planet is covered with water.
We also notice movements in the water in various different colours. I guessed at the time that these represent different species of migratory birds. I’m not far off. It turns out the different colours stand for different animal species including plankton, sharks, whales, turtles, penguins, and seabirds. The useful key in the below image sadly doesn’t appear in the onscreen imagery.
Even though this has a fixed running length, like a film, it’s more of an immersive experience, with the hangings in the waiting area setting the scene, and the pottery with liquid adding taste, touch and smell to sound and image.
The moving image was built using data sets, some of which come in the form of computer models or simulations, as building blocks. The sound includes two readings from Is a River Alive by Robert McFarlane (2025) and one from Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology by Astrida Neimanis (2017).
It’s a remarkable and thought-provoking piece, that suggests that the power of nature – and the character of our planet – dwarfs our existence as humans. Without getting preachy or didactic, the experience functions effectively as a heartfelt plea that we take good care of our functioning ecosystems as they hang in there, rather than run them unto the ground as we seem currently intent on doing.
The project was executed through Hackney-based studio studio Marshmallow Laser Feast.
Water Body is at St. Martin-in-the-Fields crypt 12:30-21:00 hours from Saturday, October 3rd to Wednesday, October 18th as part of the London Film Festival’s LFF Expanded strand. Booking for time slots here.