Transhabitat embodies a transformative exploration of the Venetian saltmarshes’ identity, aiming to establish a connection between human and ecological identity in order to evoke an ecosystem consciousness. Drawing upon the notion of the idol as a medium the project bridges the gap between the individual and the collective consciousness embodied by the saltmarshes.
Components
↪︎ 3D printing, CNC, moving images
Software
↪︎ Blender, PrusaSlicer, Midjourney
Collaborators
↪︎ Elena Zaghis, Matteo Volonterio
Mentoring
↪︎ Angela Rui, Meredith Root-Bernstein, Formafantasma
Trans-habitat is a three-channel video installation that expands the collective identity of the Venetian saltmarshes through the conception and presentation of a communication cyborg.
As an idol, the installation becomes the medium through which the piece bridges individual and collective consciousness, the same threshold separating a single saltmarsh from the ecosystem it belongs to. Two votive, crab-shaped sand holders flank the central structure.
Creating a cyborg prosthesis for Venice's endangered marshlands Transhabitat aims to restore and enhance ecosystem services. In this scenario, technology becomes a medium embodying nature itself, facilitating an eco-ontological service. This approach tears down the boundaries between human, nature, and technology, emphasizing a holistic, interconnected perspective where technology is not just for monitoring but is integral to the natural environment, fostering symbiosis and sustainability.
The booklet grounds the installation in Elisabeth Povinelli's concept of geontopower: how power operates through the distinction between Life and Nonlife rather than through the management of life alone. Venice's saltmarshes, with their unstable boundaries, resist the property logic capitalism depends on to assign value and extract profit, exposing that logic's fragility. Drawing on Povinelli's three figures the Desert, the Animist, the Virus the booklet maps the marshlands' contradictions: exploited by intensive fishing (the Desert), inhabited by a vital, non-human agency (the Animist), and threatened by the porous, destabilizing pressure of tourism (the Virus).
Alongside this theoretical framing, the booklet details the marshlands' ecosystem services: water filtration through their canal system, coastal protection against storms and tides, habitat provision across shifting salinity zones, and a nursery function for juvenile fish and nesting birds. Read together, these functions position the saltmarshes as a determinant of broader ecosystem stability, the material basis the installation's idol stands in for.
VISUAL INDEX
INSTALLATION
BOOKLET
