·Ecology Landscape

01 Sonic Energy and Its Influence

• The distance and speed of sound transmission undersea is four times as much as that in the air.

• The excessive carbon dioxide stored in sea due to the climate change leads to a dramatic decline of sound absorbability of seawater.

• Sound wave, produced by the vibration of sound source in transmitter, can transfer energy.

• The energy of wave is in a positive correlation with its amplitude (decibel) and frequency.

01 Sonic Energy and Its Influence

• The distance and speed of sound transmission undersea is four times as much as that in the air.

• The excessive carbon dioxide stored in sea due to the climate change leads to a dramatic decline of sound absorbability of seawater.

• Sound wave, produced by the vibration of sound source in transmitter, can transfer energy.

• The energy of wave is in a positive correlation with its amplitude (decibel) and frequency.

·Risk Design

01 Sonic Energy and Its Influence

• The distance and speed of sound transmission undersea is four times as much as that in the air.

• The excessive carbon dioxide stored in sea due to the climate change leads to a dramatic decline of sound absorbability of seawater.

• Sound wave, produced by the vibration of sound source in transmitter, can transfer energy.

• The energy of wave is in a positive correlation with its amplitude (decibel) and frequency.

·Paramatric Nature

Exhibition Inspired by the sound wave, the exhibition space is shaped in a half-arc to simulate the enclosure of sound wave. Three parts of the research, Sound Creature, Sound Feed and Sound Guide, are displayed on the wall with the most important model of sound creature in the center.The display stand is transparent with 4 microphones on top. When people speak through microphones

·Ecology Landscape

·Paramatric Nature

The Noise and Sousa Chinensis

Behavior Diagram of Sousa Chinensis

80% of the man-made undersea noise is from shipping. There are a couple of high-speed channels around Tai O Bay in Hong Kong where the constant noise has impacted Sousa Chinensis living and inhabiting nearby. So I’ve made a diagram of the positioned noise zone and region of influence produced by the channels as well as the gathering habitats of Sousa Chinensis. The diagram and the simulated data, which shows that the gathering Sousa Chinensis are dispersed by the noise, are expected to directly arouse people’s awareness of the influence of shipping noise to the life of Sousa Chinensis and also to pave the way for the following plan.

·Risk Design

The acidification of seawater caused by excessive carbon dioxide emissions will eventually affect the auditory organs of fish that are in direct contact with seawater. Under the influence of a series of problems such as the increase in sound sensitivity and the weakening of ocean sound absorption, marine fish represented by white dolphins have been exposed to noise for a long time. The end of the ocean crisis is the death of fish, and it is also a desperate situation for human survival. Simulate the hearing loss of the white dolphin-the shape of the sensory hair cells, and make a bionic pneumatic body art installation. In an anthropomorphic way, it alienates the response of marine organisms to the environment, thereby revealing the marine chemical crisis caused by the disorder of the carbon dioxide system.

·Ecology Landscape

The mass extinction of the fossil record is a major creativity that provides entirely new opportunities for later evolution. Today, the synergistic effect of human influence has laid the foundation for the mass extinction of the Anthropocene, but the ecological and evolutionary consequences of human extinction are unknown. Once complex ecosystems (such as coral reefs and kelp forests) turn into desolate sea sand, coastal waters will turn into a dead zone without oxygen. The synergistic effects of habitat destruction, overfishing, introduction of species, warming, acidification, toxins and macronutrients are transforming the complex food web of large animals into an ecosystem controlled by microorganisms. This ecosystem has poisonous flagellates and raging diseases. The ecological environment is changing faster and faster and nonlinear. We can only speculate about the organisms that would benefit from this chaos, which fundamentally changed the ocean’s selectivity far beyond the consequences of overfishing or global warming. Compared with metabolically flexible microorganisms and algae, the outlook for plants and animals is particularly bleak. To stop and ultimately reverse this trend, rapid and fundamental changes are needed in fisheries, agriculture, and global greenhouse gas emissions.

01. Threats hidden in ocean dead zones

Red tides formed by the severe eutrophication of seawater caused large-scale dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico. A few months after the red tide ended, most areas along the coast were still suffering from it. In the past few months, red tide biotoxins deposited in the liver of dolphins eventually led to the death of 177 dolphins. Dolphin milk is an excellent place to hide toxins. The toxins will stay in the mother's body and threaten the life and health of young dolphins.

Some algae will also release toxins after death, causing continuous pollution to the ocean. However, the dead red tide organisms also need to consume a lot of oxygen during the decomposition process, causing secondary damage to the seawater oxygen environment. In addition, red tide organisms such as Coccinella and Phaeocystis can produce sulfide, form acid rain, and then affect the atmosphere and terrestrial environment. It can be seen that the harm caused by the ocean dead zone is multifaceted, long-lasting and difficult to salvage.

02. The impact of marine pollution on the habitat of white dolphins

Studies have shown that the distance from the main estuary is the most important factor in determining the distribution of dolphin habitat. The distribution range of dolphins is also restricted by nutrients and persistent pollutants in the water body, and the predicted habitat area shrinks in both dry and humid seasons.

03. White dolphins face an aging crisis

The Guangdong Pearl River Estuary White Dolphin Conservation Administration receives an average of 15-20 white dolphins death reports every year. Lingdingyang and other waters are aging more than half. Researchers found that from 2016 to 2017, only one baby dolphin was born in Hong Kong waters every year! A 2017 study by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on the population of Chinese white dolphins in the Taiwan Strait showed that the mortality rate of white dolphins reached 1.5%. An analysis of the potential extinction threshold (PBR) shows that the future of the white dolphins is at stake. Using the latest species abundance estimates, to maintain a sustainable population, human-caused dolphin deaths occur every 7 to 7.6 years. Therefore, even one death event per year is 7 times more than sustainable PBR. When considering the losses caused only by fishing by-catch, in the prediction results of multiple sets of models, as many as 92.6% of the model runs will reduce the number of white dolphins. Compared with habitat loss, fishery interactions pose a more direct threat to the decline of white dolphins. The data model does not take into account factors such as habitat degradation, pollution and river diversion, as well as the loss caused by the random inheritance of the species. Therefore, the negative trend in the abundance of white dolphins may be underestimated. The small and declining numbers of white dolphins have made the extinction risk of white dolphins even higher, and the numbers and their habitats are under constant threats, making the situation more complicated.

04. Ocean Crisis Map

In the previous course, my research directions on ocean issues were ocean dead zones, ocean acidification, and overfishing. These three issues seem to be independent, but they are interrelated and affect each other. In this regard, I look for the intersection of three questions and draw a marine ecological map centered on the white dolphins at the top of the food chain.

·Paramatric nature

01. Seawater acidification enhances ocean noise

The issue of carbon emissions has always plagued us. Carbon dioxide reacts with water to form carbonic acid. Behind this simple chemical formula is a series of ocean chemical crises. According to current carbon emissions, the acidity of seawater will be as high as 150% by 2100. By the end of the 21st century, the concentration of carbon dioxide will increase to 720 ~ 1020 ppm, and the pH value may drop by 0.3 ~ 0.4. A seemingly small change is enough to destroy the entire marine chemical environment. For example, the acidification of seawater makes it difficult for calcified organisms such as coral polyps and bivalves to form calcium skeletons, which further damages the food chain. Even if fish have a certain self-regulating mechanism to the acid-base changes of the environment, the receptors such as hearing and smell of fish in direct contact with seawater are still affected by acidification and their hearing sensitivity increases. With the decline of ocean audio absorption rate, marine organisms will be exposed to noise for a long time, and their survivability such as avoiding natural enemies, predatory competition, and locating habitat will be seriously affected.

02. Hong Kong carbon emission location analysis

Taking Hong Kong as an example, I did a simple location analysis. Preliminary research shows that Hong Kong’s main carbon dioxide emissions come from transportation and power generation. The map uses three different shades of color to mark the traffic road network in Hong Kong according to the primary and secondary colors. The red area is used to mark the location information of the departure power plant, airport, and dock, and the range is distinguished according to the emission volume and the intensity of pollution sources.

03. Pollution in the Pearl River Delta

The animation simulates the effect of carbon dioxide emission sources on the noise expansion of noise sources such as airports and docks, as well as the phenomenon of cooperation chaos and separation from groups caused by noise interference during fish predation and migration.

·Risk Design

01. Investigation on hearing problems of marine organisms

The consequences of marine ecological destruction have gradually come to humans living on land. Today's marine creatures hear sounds that have never been seen in their habitats. Is this sound also a warning to humans?

Research on the effects of seawater acidification on the hearing of marine fish points out that this problem is related to the increase in the saturation of calcium carbonate in the inner ear lymph caused by the acid-base adjustment of the fish body.

The sound is transmitted to the inner ear, causing the lymph fluid to vibrate, and then the mechanical signal is transmitted to the hair cells (sensory epithelial cells that are stimulated by sound waves). Hair cells convert this mechanical signal into electrical signals, which are transmitted to the brain to produce hearing.

So I started with the hair cell and analyzed its morphological characteristics. When I further selected the research subjects, I returned to our subject, the white dolphin. As a high-IQ mammal, the white dolphin is more similar to humans and is more suitable as a medium for connecting people and the ocean. The ear structure of the white dolphin is similar to that of humans. The hair cells are located inside the cochlea and oscillate through the upper and lower membrane structures to produce hair cells swaying back and forth.

This mechanical effect gave me the idea of making a human body device. Feeling that hair cells are the smallest units affected by ocean acidification and ocean noise, are they also a good starting point?

02. Device basic form

03. Pneumatic device design

Build a skin structure grass model

Study the morphology of echo-type mammalian hair cells such as white dolphins, and extract and strip them to obtain such geometric shapes.

While wanting to retain the characteristics of marine organisms (fish), after divergent thinking and morphological optimization, I retained the array and dynamic characteristics of hair cells. After various changes and feasibility screening, we finally got this pattern.

Installation physical display