Testing Tomorrow (2025)
Data-Driven Future Organisms
Overview
<Testing Tomorrow>
is a project developed through collaboration and research with scientists from NASA’s Ocean Biology Processing Group, using real-time environmental datasets sourced from NASA, NOAA, GOA-ON, and EMODnet to visualise speculative morphological transformations of future organisms. Presented as a series of terrarium-like specimens, the project explores how changing environmental conditions may reshape the structural and sensory characteristics of living systems.
As part of the research process, interviews with a synthetic biologist further informed the project’s exploration of adaptive futures, environmental mutation, and data-driven biological design.
Ultimately,
<Testing Tomorrow>
positions itself between scientific research and immersive storytelling, translating invisible climate systems into tangible, sensory experiences that speculate on possible forms of future life.
Speculative terrarium specimens shaped by climate data
Speculative organism specimens reconstructed through climate data research
Morphological sketches derived from data-driven
environmental speculation
System Process
Rather than treating climate data as abstract numerical information, the project develops a structured data-mapping system that translates environmental conditions into biological and material characteristics. Each dataset is normalised and connected to specific morphological responses: for example, rising temperatures correspond to expansion and deformation of bodily structures, ocean acidification to surface erosion and shifts in transparency, and salinity changes to crystallised textures and variations in density. Through this mapping logic, environmental conditions are reconstructed as physical and visual properties including texture, colour saturation, translucency, surface formations, and bodily morphology.
The system is further informed by research into ecological adaptation mechanisms and environmental stress responses observed in living organisms, extending these conditions into speculative future life forms. Each specimen is accompanied by microscopic footage revealing detailed textures and structures, allowing viewers to observe the relationship between climate systems and biological transformation at multiple scales.