Whalefall, 2025

Anna Czoski & Sabin Timalsena

Whalefall examines the transmutation of life after death. The organic and digital elements in the installation explore the stage of life when the physical and intangible morph and return to collective existence.

After a whale's last breath, the body descends to the ocean floor and serves as habitat for hundreds of species for decades. Part of the body in Whalefall is the cellulose byproduct of a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. The new life generated from this flesh is rendered as an emergent system where digital organisms emerge, grow, and interact with each other in a real-time simulation.

The body of the whale is constructed from laser-cut wood, 3D printed bones, and the skin is made from kombucha leather. The projected visuals depict an ecosystem of 3 species of digital organisms that grow out of the whale’s carcass, which grow and interact with each other, and eventually die and return to where they spawned from. The simulation is run real-time via compute shaders in a Unity program.