Laboratory to Ascertain Plausibility of Jim’s Basement Floor Anecdote

2009

An aquarium cluster with floors designed to simulate different post-human surfaces. A table with accessories and equipment for killifish keeping. 2 minutes of video documenting actual jumping behaviour of Rivulus Punctatus, shot during a correctly set up scientific experiment in my flooded studio.

Lab JBF is a reconstruction/investigation/expansion of an event documented amongst the global killifish aquarist community – a few Rivulus punctatus left their aquariums and established a new habitat on the basement floor, in shallow puddles caused by a dripping water recirculation system. The owner of the house allowed them to remain there, and after a few months the fish were spawning new generations. In the end, the owner moved and this habitat disappeared.

Killifish live in shallow puddles – and puddles are highly temporary habitats. To counteract this, survival strategies have evolved which disregard the individual and lend the fish a sperm-like existence. This project focuses on the jumpers, species which jump out of their puddle and try to find another.

The survival strategies of the killifish species seem to provide just the right mix of accessibility, difficulty and peculiarities to trigger a hobbyist gene in humans. Typically you don’t find killifish in shops, but a global network of killifish amateurs collect and breed these fish with an ethic of DIY and preservation of the nature form. The killi hobby is a subculture in aquarism and not very visible, the fish are not attractive to the commercial circuit, and the enthusiasts are not scientists even though their language and quality of work often parallels that of professional biologists.

Currently biological evolution is being overrun by human cultural evolution. Survival is dependent on the ability to plug into some aspect of human culture. In this situation, killifish is one of few species whose future existence is practically guaranteed. Some killifish species have lost their natural habitats, yet exist in somebody’s fishroom, protected by breeding ethics. They have infiltrated human culture and survive the new evolution parameters through a symbiosis with hobby amateurs.

Lab JBF is inspired by the mythic prowess of these fishes to escape from their aquariums, a result of their sperm-like survival tactics in the wild. It is also a proposal for an alternative/active/mutual mode of coexistence between people and animals. Finally, the installation makes visible the fact that these particular fishes have infiltrated human culture, not only in the museum but all over the world in “grassroots” nerd cliques, raising the question – what does it take to survive human evolution?

The work is commissioned by Fundacion Ortega Munoz and MEIAC. Premiere opening june 12, 2009.

Collection Fundacion Ortega Munoz / MEIAC.

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