Philipp Artus
Aquatics

Philipp Artus is a multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker from Berlin. His work is dedicated to the diverse expressions of life by combining moving images and sound. In the audiovisual experiences he creates, there are both playful elements and minimalist structures, grand and timeless themes as well as punctual and topical references, turbulent acceleration and contemplative stillness.

As part of the Water Light Festival 2024, the artist is showing the work Aquatics, which - as the name suggests - brings a generative underwater world into the city's public space. Animated sea creatures appear on a projection and interact with each other. The work explores the emergence of life through abstract forms and movement, with the public using a tablet to design their own underwater creatures and add them to the projection. The interacting visitors can determine the type, number, size, shape, colour and even behaviour of the creatures. Aquatics can therefore be understood as both a utopia and a dystopia: the idea of the unknown beauty and diversity of nature or an algorithm that is intended to replace nature as a creator. In any case, the artwork offers a glimpse of possible developments in artificial ecosystems in the future.