Ongoing | A(c)qua Alta: Automated Art Adaptation System

2023 - Ongoing

A(c)qua Alta: Automated Art Adaptation System

Acqua Alta — Italian for "high water" — is a body of paintings with self-preservation capabilities. Using live tidal and flood data scraped from NOAA's buoy array, automated winches raise and lower each work in real time as nearby water levels rise. In normal conditions, the paintings move subtly with daily tidal rhythms; in emergencies, they respond at the speed of a storm surge. The project draws on Venice's centuries-old flood protocols and the contemporary reality of managed retreat, asking: what do we choose to save, and at what cost?

First exhibited at CultureHouse, Washington, D.C., 2023 — in the very gallery flooded by Hurricane Isabel in 2003.

Debut installation of three A(c)qua Alta works at “Above Below Water” group exhibition at CultureHouse, Washington, DC, June 2023.

In normal weather scenarios, movements will subtly occur throughout the day following the natural tidal rhythms with a variance of about three feet on average.

For the purposes of demonstrating their climate emergency adaptive speeds, in this video the paintings are playing out a program which compresses four days worth of storm surge data from 2003 Hurricane Isabel, which flooded the very gallery they are now displayed in, into four minutes of motion.

Temporary video footage. COMING SOON: High resolution video documentation and artist interview.