echoes from more than human world
Overview
“Man is the measure of all things” wrote Protagoras.
Yet the Anthropocene invites us to question this ancient assumption.
As human activity reshapes the planet, our understanding of the world remains constrained by the limits of our own senses. Countless ecological, geological, biological, and technological processes unfold beyond what we can directly see, hear, or perceive. If our perception is inherently anthropocentric, how can we begin to understand the worlds of the non-human?
Inspired by the words of cultural historian Thomas Berry — “The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects” — SCAPES_ is a long-term project that explores hidden dimensions of our planet through artistic research and scientific inquiry.
By bringing together artists, scientists, designers, and local communities, SCAPES_ transforms scientific knowledge into immersive experiences that bridge data and imagination. Rather than illustrating science, the project creates spaces where artistic and scientific practices can generate new ways of sensing, interpreting, and engaging with the world.
SCAPES_ invites visitors to explore what usually remains unheard, unseen, or not easy to access, revealing the complex relationships that connect humans with more-than-human environments.
Through sound, images, installations, field research, and speculative design, it encourages curiosity, critical thinking, and new ecological imaginaries
Project Sctructure
SCAPES_ is a three-year artscience journey through UNDER, ABOVE, and BEYOND, exploring environments beyond the limits of human perception—from underground worlds to the atmosphere and the Earth–Space interface. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, the project brings artistic and scientific practices together to investigate environmental questions and rethink humanity’s place within interconnected human and more-than-human worlds.
We know more about the surface of Mars than about the deepest regions of our own planet. Vast cave systems remain unmapped, while less than 0.001% of the deep seafloor has been visually explored.
Beneath our feet lies a world that is both largely invisible and fundamentally essential: a complex network of geological, hydrological, biological, and acoustic processes that sustain life on Earth while remaining beyond everyday human perception.
SCAPES_under is the first chapter of the trilogy.
It explores underground and underwater environments as spaces where scientific discovery and artistic imagination converge to reveal hidden forms of life, communication, and memory.
The exhibition brings together artists, scientists, speleologists, geophysicists, marine biologists, environmental researchers, and local communities to investigate phenomena that often escape human senses: the resonance of caves, the movement of seismic waves, the slow growth of underwater forests and dissolved presences that elude direct perception.
Through different artworks, installations, field recordings, scientific datasets, participatory research, and speculative design, SCAPES_under invites visitors to experience the underground not as an absence of light, but as a space rich with signals, relationships, and stories.
It proposes a shift in perspective—from seeing the subsurface as an unknown void to recognising it as a living archive of planetary processes, ecological resilience, and more-than-human intelligence.
