Miami, May 10 (BUS): Humans don’t know what they’re missing below the surface of a crowded shipping channel in the “cruise capital of the world”. Beneath the rafters of massive ships, an underwater camera provides a live feed from another world, showing marine life doing its best to combat global warming.
This Miami government camera is just one of many projects undertaken by a marine biologist and musician who have been on a 15-year mission to raise awareness about dying coral reefs by combining science and art to bring life under the sea into pop culture, reports AP.
Their company — Coral Morphologic — displays stunning photos, puts up gorgeous close-ups of underwater creatures on social media, puts together a time-lapse video of glowing coral swinging to music and projecting it onto buildings, and even selling a coral-themed beachwear collection.
We’re not all science. We’re not all technical. Defying the appearance of a typical scientist, with blue hair so spiky that it looks electrically charged, Colin Forward, said he and business partner JD McKay sat down with the Associated Press to present their work.
One of their most popular projects is Coral City Camera, which recently crossed 2 million views and usually has around 100 viewers online at any given time each day.
“We’ll actually be able to document one year of coral growth, which has never happened before in situ on a reef, and that’s only possible because we have this technology connection here in the Port of Miami that allows us to,” Ford said.
The live broadcast has already revealed that antlers and other corals can adapt and thrive even in a highly urbanized undersea environment, along with 177 species of fish, dolphins, manatees and other marine life, Ford said.
“We have these very resilient corals growing here. The whole point of making it underwater was to show people that there is a lot of marine life here in our city,” Fore said.
youtube video thumbnail
Meanwhile, Mackay looks like a Broadway producer as he describes how he also photographs the creatures in their Miami lab, growing corals in tanks to outfit them for close-ups in brilliant colour.
“We basically do a set with one of these aquariums, obviously there’s actors – coral or shrimp or whatever – and then we shoot it, and then I get a great vibe, whatever’s going on in the scene, and then I chop it up with some ambiance Like sounds, something very peripheral,” MacKay explained.
Their latest production, “Coral City Flourotour,” will be shown on New World Center Wallscape this week while the Aspen Institute hosts a major climate conference in Miami Beach. Forward speaks at a panel discussion on how the ocean’s natural systems can help humans learn how to combat the effects of climate change. Talk title? “Ocean is a superhero.”
“I think when we can realize that we are all this one family of life and everything is interconnected, we hope we can make meaningful changes now, so that future generations don’t have to live in a world of wildfires and melting ice hoods and dead oceans.”
Their task is urgent: after 500 million years on Earth, this species is under attack from climate change. Warming oceans are causing coral bleaching and increasing the risk of infectious diseases that can cause mass coral death, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Powerful storms and changes in water chemistry can destroy reef structures, while shifting currents sweep away food and larvae.
“Climate change is the single biggest global threat to coral reef ecosystems,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said in a recent report.
This happens in the second part of the name Coral Morphologic. “What does it mean to be morphological? It really means having to adapt because the environment is always changing.
Staghorn, Elkhorn, and brain corals living on Government Cut provide a real-world example of how reef communities can adapt to things like rising heat and polluted runoff, even in an unlikely environment like the Port of Miami. Their video documented a glow in some of the corals, an unusual response in marine waters that Ford said could protect them from the sun.
“The harbor is an invaluable place for coral research,” Ford said. “We have to be realistic. You will not be able to return ecosystems to what they were 200 years ago. The options left to us are more radical.”
Beyond science, there is clothing. Coral Morphologic sells a range of surfwear and swimwear that takes designs from anemones and brain coral and uses environmentally sustainable materials like a type of nylon recycled from old fishing nets.
“We see the power of technology in connecting people with nature. We are fortunate as artists, and corals are benefiting,” Ford said.