Parthenogenesis

2002

Created, Directed and Animated by Marina Zurkow
Music: Lem Jay Ignacio

A project of Creative Capital

What is the heart? It is not human, and it is not imaginary Rumi Parthenogenesis is an animated, allegorical nano-opera. It tells an oblique story of love, loss, and self-reconciliation by utilizing the language of international symbols, traditionally reserved for explicit instruction in the world. This pictographic language can produce multiple layers in a single…

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Underfoot/Overhead (Wasserman Projects)

2024

Digital AI prints, generative software works

Software works in collaboration with James Schmitz

Exhibition presented by Wasserman Projects, Detroit, with generous support from the Knight Foundation,

Wasserman Projects (link)

Two-person show with Jasmine Murrell. Curation: Alison Wong Special thanks to Gary Wasserman, Ian Rummell, and John Charnota Photos by PD Rearick, courtesy Wasserman Projects

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The Breath Eaters v2.0

2023

Custom software (color, silent)
Edition of 5, 1 AP

The Breath Eaters 2.0 is an an animated, custom software artwork that visualizes PM2.5 pollutants produced by wildfire and fossil fuel plant emissions. Inspired by an open source AI image of a World War II propaganda map and presented as a live, generative composition, the work demonstrates how particulate pollution is carried into the high atmosphere…

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The Breath Eaters 2.0 (diptych)

2023

Custom software (color, silent)

In collaboration with James Schmitz

Commissioned by Visions 2030: Earth Edition for CalArts, 2023

This version of The Breath Eaters (diptych) offers two varying views of the Earth using data. The work addresses human impact on earth systems, fire management practices, and the planetary poetics of wind.

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The Dorises: Oystercraft from silicon to saltwater

2023

Custom software (color, silent)
Generative, non-interactive
93 editions, 6 artist editions, 1 publisher proof

In collaboration with Ira Greenberg
Oystercraft website design: Pat Shiu

Part of the exhibition “Chain Reaction” on Feral File, curated by Christiane Paul

Created for the online exhibition “Chain Reaction,” curated by Christiane Paul on the Feral File platform.

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World Wind (bitforms gallery)

2022

Digital prints, generative software works

Software works in collaboration with James Schmitz

Exhibited at bitforms gallery, New York

bitforms gallery (link)

World Wind is an exhibition featuring artworks by Marina Zurkow and collaborative, generative pieces by Zurkow and James Schmitz.

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The Breath Eaters v1.0

2022

Custom software (color, silent)
Edition of 5, 1 AP

The Breath Eaters is an animated, custom software work that visualizes PM2.5 pollutants produced by wildfire and fossil fuel plant emissions. Inspired by a Midjourney image of a world map and presented as a live, generative composition, the work demonstrates how particulate pollution is carried into the high atmosphere and across the globe on currents…

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Hudson Follies

2022

Custom software, color, silent
8K screen and computer
Dimensions approximately 40′ x 10′

In collaboration with Jim Schmitz
Animation assistance: Ewan Creed

Hudson River consultants: Hudson River Park’s River Project: Hudson River consultants: Carrie Roble, Tina Walsh, Siddhartha Hayes, Toland Kister

Worldbuilding consultants:Una Chaudhuri, Lafayette Cruise, Carolyn Hall, Clarinda Mac Low, Tony Patrick

Commissioned by Google for Pier 57

The animated software-driven work Hudson Follies is a site-specific commission by Google for the lobby of their event space occupying Pier 57 along the Hudson River in Chelsea, Manhattan. It explores an alternate, present-day Hudson River estuary in which happy social and biological ecosystems live in harmony, where humans can interact with the water in…

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Does the River Flow Both Ways?

2022

Custom software, color, silent
Projection or monitor and computer
Dimensions variable

In this animated software-driven work, an alternate, present-day Hudson River estuary exists in which relatively healthy social and biological ecosystems live in harmony; where humans can interact with the water in intimate ways, and experience what is happening below the surface. 

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150 Media Stream

150 Media Stream

2021

3 minute video loop, sound

Sound by Scott Reitherman.
Animation assistance: Ewan Creed.

Commissioned by 150 Media Stream, Chicago IL.

https://150mediastream.com/archive/
This work is part of the project:

On view Oct 2021 – Jan 2022, OOzy #2: like oil and water was conformed for a 16K screen in the lobby of 150 Riverside, Chicago. OOzy #2: like oil and water brings into view a sensual—but harsh—mix of kelp, marine organisms, human aquanauts, mermaids, plastics, and oil, who cycle and snake through the 150…

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OOzy2 production still

OOzy #2: like oil and water

2022

3 minute video loop, sound

Sound by Scott Reitherman
Animation assistance by Ewan Creed

Commissioned by Niio

This work is part of the project:

The ocean is not a body—and it is. Seeking its own level, it expands as much as it can. The ocean is a container. It is also a shipping superhighway; a resource for food and minerals; a space of mystery, adventure, fantasy, dream, and myth; a space to be mapped, measured, and known; and “Earth’s”…

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OOzy3

OOzy #3: just because you can’t swim in it doesn’t mean it isn’t there

2022

3 minute video loop, silent

Animation assistance: Ewan Creed

Commissioned by Niio

This work is part of the project:

6,000 meters below the ocean surface, a human would experience crushing pressure, freezing temperatures, and total darkness. But other beings thrive in the Abyssal Zone; at 300,000,000 square km, it is the largest environment for earth life. Coral reefs, squid, sea spiders thrive; many are transparent, luminescent, lit from within.  Minerals ooze out of hydrothermal…

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Oceans Like Us (5 Manhattan West)

2021

Custom software animation, screens, custom poplar wood pallets

Sound Design: Scott Reitherman. Software: Sam Brenner. Animation: Marina Zurkow and Ewan Creed. Technology: James Schmitz. Documentation: Jakob Dahlin
Curated by Kendal Henry

Commissioned by @artsbrookfield

This work is part of the project:

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Boil the Ocean (ICA San Diego)

2021

Custom generative animation software, sound, screens, marine debris, wall drawings, custom wood scaffolds

Sound Design: Scott Reitherman. Software: Sam Brenner. Animation: Marina Zurkow and Ewan Creed. Technology: James Schmitz. Scaffold architecture: Keith Edwards. Documentation: Phillip Rittermann

Commissioned by the ICA San Diego

This work is part of the project:

Text by Guusje Sanders, curator: Aided by the constructed marine debris island, visitors can see, smell, touch, hear and taste their presence within the ocean. The installation invites participants to re-imagine their connections to the ocean and challenge their conditioned perspectives. By slowing down in a complex space of systems, an opportunity arises to assume…

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Oceans Like Us

2020

Custom generative animation software, sound

This work is part of the project:

A set of three software-driven animation works that explore the ocean and its inhabitants as a fractal and restless repository of reflections and projections. The series offers an ocean poetics to produce new affections for the ocean at large—a cosmopolitan sea inclusive of graceful, filthy, tangled, and fantastic realities and imaginary churns. Custom software allows…

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Wet Logic (bitforms gallery)

2020

Custom software, wall drawings, silkscreen prints, toilet, recycled nurdles, fishbowl fountain

bitforms gallery (link)
This work is part of the project:

Wet Logic, a collaborative exhibition by Marina Zurkow and Sarah Rothberg, presents a model of the world organized according to a wet, oceanic ideology rather than a dry, land-based paradigm.

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What is Happening

2020

Site-specific video installation (52 screens) at the Fulton Transit Center, New York

Created in collaboration with Sarah Rothberg

Commissioned by MTA Arts & Design.

Sarah Rothberg and Marina Zurkow’s video project “WHAT IS HAPPENING” at Fulton Center combines site-specific drawings of the transit hub’s architectural elements with text and animated collage. Philosophical queries like “WHAT IS POSSIBLE” or “WHAT IS MOVING” prompt the minds of viewers passing through. These provocations are met with clever visual juxtapositions, such as a doughnut rising…

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More&More (Jugendstilsenteret og KUBE)

2019

Custom animation software, custom bathing suits, screens, shipping crates, plaster, 3D prints, mycelium, plexi shelving, custom wallpaper

In collaboration with Sarah Rothberg and Surya Mattu<br>
Software: Sam Brenner <br>
Web development: Neil Cline

Solo exhibition at Jugendstilsenteret og KUBE, Ålesund, Norway

This work is part of the project:

Part of the group exhibition, “Edge of the Sea”

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More&More (the invisible oceans) software

2016

Custom animated software in custom powder-coated steel housing

Production: Sarah Rothberg<br>
Software: Sam Brenner

Commissioned in part by Borusan Contemporary

This work is part of the project:

Unifying the disparate commodities from large port nations into a phantasmagoric depot, MORE&MORE: China, India, Japan, Mexico, Turkey, USA, Russia, and Brazil are eight sculptural animations with custom algorithmic software generating hypnotic patterns of export products. These exports are both material trade items as noted in the Harmonized System (HS) tariff code and the nations’…

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More&More (bitforms gallery)

2016
Custom animated software in custom steel powder-coated housing, sculptures, shelving, crates, bathing suits, website, books

Production: Sarah Rothberg
Bathing suit/web site collaborators: Sarah Rothberg, Surya Mattu
Software: Sam Brenner
Web development: Neil Cline
Studio assistance: Ariana Martinez

Commissioned in part by Borusan Contemporary
This work is part of the project:

The ocean makes up 71 percent of our planet’s surface. So, how is it that we know more about Mars than the marine environments of Earth? As impenetrable as the deep oceans are to humans, we imperviously live in a black box of international shipping, reducing the ocean to a surface rather than an environmental…

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