The installation is part of the series Subocean Botlights which departs from the fact that most intercontinental communication relies heavily on submarine fiber optic cables. This network carries threads of light as thin as a tenth of human hair while being as existential to technological societies as the sun is to plants. We are hanging by a thread while artificial sun rays plunge through the oceans and light up our faces through bright screens.

The installation introduces baits into these networks and lures in threads of light from different parts of the globe. The Wardian cases function as miniature closed ecosystems and also as islands in the network between things – the Internet. Any device connected to this network becomes a target for automated processes – bots – whose motives are mostly non-transparent and therefore unknown. Each plant then becomes an object of interest to these robots whose communicative acts, streams of light, once they pass through the ocean floors are lit back into our environment as bursts of growth light, giving them an agenda they are unaware of.

This work was realised within the framework of the European Media Art Platforms (EMAP) programme at WRO Art Center (PL) with support of the Creative Europe Culture Programme of the European Union.