Metamedij

14/07 2025

The 27th edition of Media Mediterranea Opens with Works Exploring Ocean Themes and Climate Change

Media Mediterranea, News

This year’s 27th edition of the Media Mediterranea festival, organized by the Metamedij Association, began on Monday, May 26, with the video program “H2O Interface” at the Small Roman Theatre of the Archaeological Museum of Istria. The screening was an integral part of the exhibition of the same name, curated by Darko Fritz, which opened on Wednesday, May 28, at the Novo Gallery in Pula (Laginjina 7), marking the official and ceremonial opening of Media Mediterranea 27.

 

 

The video program featured works by Karla Brunet, Nigel Helyer, Toni Meštrović, and Robertina Šebjanič—artists whose work explores themes of the ocean, underwater ecosystems, and climate change. In the video A Blue Note by Toni Meštrović, the artist examines the phenomenon of air bubbles in seawater, with the title referring to the idea that underwater bubbles change their frequencies. Underwater sounds also appeared in the works of various artists, some of whom incorporated statistical data—such as in Nigel Helyer’s piece Biologging and Under the Icecap (Excerpt), where jazz musicians improvise on a score based on oceanic data from around Australia.

 

 

In Robertina Šebjanič’s video CO_SONIC 1884km², the artist explores the ecology of a river that flows and disappears underground—both on the surface and beneath the planet. In her video Antarctic Convergence, Karla Brunet examines the state of glaciers and the meeting point between ice and ocean, incorporating extensive statistical data into her work.

 

 

The Media Mediterranea 27 festival program continued on Tuesday, May 27, at the Faculty of Economics and Tourism “Dr. Mijo Mirković” of the University of Pula, where Dr. Cecelia Cmielewski (Western Sydney University) gave a lecture on the topic “Institutional Collaborations in Art and Science”, while Dr. Nigel Helyer presented his artistic practice through a talk titled “Water Works.”

 

 

With the opening of the exhibition “H2O Interface” on Wednesday, May 28, at the Novo Gallery in Pula, the festival was officially inaugurated. The exhibition was curated by Darko Fritz and featured works by Leah Barclay, Karla Brunet, Nigel Helyer, Toni Meštrović, Dijana Protić, Robertina Šebjanič & Entangled Others (Sofia Crespo and Feileacan McCormick). At the opening, speeches were given by Marijeta Bradić, head of the Novo Gallery, Marino Jurcan, the festival director, and Darko Fritz, the curator and author of this year’s festival theme.

 

 

At the Novo Gallery, Nigel Helyer exhibited the works BioSphere|DataSphere, Heat, and ReSound. The BioSphere|DataSphere project presents a series of creative interpretations of a wide range of scientific data collected through field research. Acoustic data, gathered using an underwater monitoring buoy, are transformed into sculptural forms and animations that reveal the daily choruses of fish.

 

 

The work Heat consists of computer-generated images and an audiovisual piece. In collaboration with oceanographer Chris Chapman from CSIRO, a map of thermal anomalies in the waters surrounding Tasmania was developed, based on decades of satellite recordings. Sea surface temperature values calculated at depth contours of 200m, 500m, 1,000m, 2,000m, and 3,000m were translated into musical pitches and transformed into monophonic scores. Each score was performed using instruments, and the five layers of sound were merged into a musical composition accompanying the visualization of the same data. In addition to the audiovisual component, the data were also presented through a series of radar graphs, further illustrating temperature variations in the ocean depths.

 

 

The work ReSound consists of three elements: 2D laser-cut sculptures, 3D-printed forms, and an audiovisual animation. ReSound is an artistic interpretation of an extensive dataset collected via an underwater buoy anchored in the Tasman Fracture. The data were divided into twelve one-week periods and used to create two series of sculptural “data clocks.”

 

 

At the festival, Karla Brunet presents two works: Possible Displacements and Non-Sea. Possible Displacements is an audiovisual cartography that explores pathways for understanding the Mediterranean. It focuses on the movement of the body within this new territory, all recorded through GPX tracks. Walking, paddling, swimming, diving, and sailing are integral parts of a symbiosis with the sea, its tides, and currents.

 

 

In the work Non-Sea, the artist, during her artistic expeditions through the Mediterranean, searches for lighthouses which she perceives as the anti-sea or non-sea. This quest serves as a way of exploring boundaries and deepening the understanding of the sea itself.

 

Leah Barclay’s work Migration Patterns presents an immersive soundscape that explores the fragility and complexity of life through the worlds of sound and vibration. It is based on a large database of recordings captured with hydrophones along the Queensland coast, tracing sonic migration patterns and shifting ecologies—from microscopic crustaceans to the largest marine mammals on the planet.

 

Her work Hydrology 2.0 Sound Walk is a half-hour sound walk through Pula, accessible via the free Echoes app by scanning a QR code displayed in the gallery. This technologically mediated auditory experience transforms the space into a dynamic sonic environment, revealing the rich life beneath the surfaces of rivers, oceans, and lakes. Drawing on over 300 hours of hydrophone recordings collected from aquatic systems around the world over the past decade, this interdisciplinary project turns scientific research into an artistic experience.

 

 

The project by Robertina Šebjanič & Entangled Others (Sofia Crespo, Feileacan McCormick), titled AquA(I)formings, explores the possibility of an empathetic relationship between humans and more-than-human entities. The project investigates changes in the marine environment caused by human presence and attempts to imagine how new conditions—such as rising sea levels and water temperatures, changes in chemical composition, and more—affect its inhabitants. The artists trace the path of the noble pen shell (Pinna nobilis), a marine organism that has long fascinated scientists and marine researchers, using it as a visual metaphor for more-than-human entities.

 

 

The artwork Night Tide by Dijana Protić presents a feminist perspective on the sea and navigation across different eras. The first narrative follows Catharine, an imagined pirate captain from around 1760. This part is told in the Gozo dialect of the Maltese language. Catharine and her crew rescue a shipwrecked captain and sailors. A sharp visual and sound cut introduces the second narrative, which focuses on Mirta Milat, a contemporary captain of a research vessel mapping ecological disasters in the Mediterranean. This section is told in the Korčula dialect. The three-channel video installation creates an atmospheric experience rather than a structured narrative.

 

 

Toni Meštrović’s work Change of State in Stereo describes the scream of a water droplet as it falls onto a glowing hot plate: now transformed audiovisually, the disappearance of the droplet is captured through the “eyes and ears” of technology. In a darkened space, two video cameras and two microphones record the image and sound of water dripping onto two glowing hot plates. The recorded audiovisual material is then projected onto the front of the installation (onto two projection screens and corresponding speakers). Change of State in Stereo is a poetic observation of elemental phenomena. Through this work, the artist explores the boundary between the visible and invisible to highlight those things that most often go unnoticed in everyday life.

 

The closing program of the Media Mediterranea festival took place on Friday, May 30, at the Kotač club in the Rojc Social Center. It featured a pop-up presentation of works from the speculative design and VJ workshop Pipedreams & Lushlakes, led during the festival by Dora Đurkesac and Lilly Urbat. Following the presentation, the final party Blue Current was held, with performances by DJ Evan and Ilija Rudman.