Yeryn Ahn

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Traces We Leave

Format: Interactive Media, Graphic, Sculpture, Web, Sound
Coral reefs are never silent. The sounds you hear here belong to the creatures that make up real reef ecosystems. Fish communicate with each other. Crabs and shrimps click and buzz continuously. Young corals follow reef soundscapes to find suitable places to settle. Sound is what keeps a reef alive and connected. But climate change, pollution, noise, and human development are quietly unraveling those acoustic connections. Most of it happens where we can't see it. This project brings that invisible relationship between humans and coral reefs into the open, through interactive media, graphic, sound, sculpture, and web.

On screen, 22 coral species on NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)'s endangered list warp and blur in real time, reacting to the noise and movement of whoever's in the room. A TouchDesigner system tied to real reef bioacoustic recordings slowly distorts each coral's shape and sound as audience noise builds up. Visitors feel their own actions shaping what they see and hear, coming face to face with the traces we leave without even realizing it.

A dead coral structure, coated in silver, carries that transformation into physical space. When coral dies, the color and life are gone, leaving only the skeleton behind. That metallic surface, something nature never produces, brings to mind industry and human-driven development, a landscape reshaped by our own hands. Everything we do leaves a trace. This project asks what traces we are leaving on coral reefs, and how deep they go.


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