Exhibited at the Contempory Arts Forum, Santa Barbara, CA in 1989.
The transparent tubes are configured to echo the dual hemispheres of the human brain, while blue electrical wires trace the neurological energy of thought. Superimposed over a cosmic background, the entire structure suggests our impulse to dominate and decode nature through knowledge.
Symbolically, the piece draws on the metaphor of dendrites—neural branches reaching outward—to represent our absorption of universal energy. This energy fuels the organization and continuation of life, embodied here by the fish.
Each tube contains 10 to 12 tropical fish—live-bearing guppies. Water circulates through the tubes, carrying newborn fry downward through narrow openings into the pond below, protecting them from being consumed by the adults. This subtle intervention creates a living system where birth and survival coexist in delicate balance. The fish, with their vivid colors and hypnotic movement, perform a mystical dance—a choreography of life, renewal, and transcendence.
On a more grounded, even critical level, the ants traversing the barren landscape below serve as a stark contrast. They become a metaphor for the mindlessness of collective human behavior—marching endlessly, unaware of the damage they inflict, a mirror held up to our own societal patterns.
This installation didn’t close a chapter, it cracked something open. After Fishbreeder, the questions changed. I started thinking less about symbols and more about systems that think for themselves. What would it mean to collaborate with something alive, not just include it? What happens when the artwork is a kind of intelligence in its own right? These ideas wouldn’t fully surface until much later, especially in the work with AI, but Fishbreeder was the first piece where I stopped trying to explain life and started making space for it to unfold.
