The Aquarium of Mermaid Delights (2022) is an audio-sculpted alteration to my recent master thesis, 'When I cry into my icosahedral mermaid womb, the sea cradles me: Creating imaginary water worlds for Suicidal depression and Healing through Multi-sensory Environments'. The thesis project aimed to create imaginary water worlds by building multi-sensory environments that offer a space for others to swim, dive, and acknowledge these critical issues relating to mental and emotional health. Also, creating an aesthetic narrative by speculating how our depressed bodies (including my own body) exist in a utopian water world and imagining how technology might be able to reprogram our feelings, emotions and well-being. In this multichannel audio composition, I am creating sound worlds to help visualise this hyper-emotional, fleshy, and soupy futures.

 

The title of the piece is a play on words and it was inspired from 'The Garden of Earthy Delights' (c.1490- 1500s) an infamous triptych painting by Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch. Many modern adaptations and reproductions to his work offers new meanings and ideas. Great examples, such as American transmedia artist Carla Gannis, her work 'The Garden of Emoji Delights' (2014) and Dutch animation trio, Studio Smack created a 3D animated version of Bosch's work.

 

In 'The Aquarium of Mermaid Delights', it involves old recordings of my mother, my younger brother and I as a child singing nursery rhymes together. It also includes few lines of my speculative fiction poetry recited by AI human generated voices.