Title: Plastic Souls
Artist(s): Geert-Jan Hobijn
Source: Neural Magazine
Sense(s): Sound
Issue(s): plastic waste in the ocean
This work functions as an art installation and a form of activism in the form of beach litter cleaning. In this work, Hobijn created a floating musical instrument made entirely from reclaimed plastic beach litter. Furthermore, he created instructions for the replication of the instrument. When installed at a beach location ‘the waves of the sea will act as the musician of the instrument, which thereby also takes on the role of a siren and hopefully make people more aware of the disturbing trend of plastic waste on beaches and in oceans and seas’. 1 Thus, the installation both sonifies the motion of the waves, and in doing so in situ, visibilises the kinds of plastic waste that may have washed up on that beach.
The project is significant, in that it includes several tutorials and documentation to enable others to make their own version of the work. It was included in the German version of Make magazine, a popular magazine for DIY/hacker culture. This acknowledges the global issue of plastic waste, and enables would-be artists and activists anywhere affected by plastic ocean pollution to visibilise, sonify and materialise it.