Oliver Hull at Kings / Melbourne

Oliver Hull / Mullaloo and Magnus

June 22 - July 25, 2023

Kings

69 Capel St, West Melbourne, Australia

Photography by Sebastian Kainey

Oliver Hull
Mullaloo and Magnus, 2023
Fiberglass, epoxy, flatback aluminum 1050 heatsink, aluminum extrusion, hardware,rust,mineral residue,pigment,dirt,organic debris,aquifer water,speakers,amplifier,computer,pla 3d prints, cable ducting, brackets, Real Time- eDNA fluid simulation, DNA to Midi generative sound work, 50” monitor. 
1700 x 1450 x 670mm, unlimited duration.

For millions of years, the Mullaloo aquifer was sealed, plantless and occupied only by stygofauna and troglofauna that live only off the remains of each other (we don’t really know how they can survive like this). The animals and bacteria that make up the ecosystem of the aquifer have hardly been seen. We are only just beginning to be able to sense them through Environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling technology, a technique which has only recently been made available by supercomputing. Magnus, the fastest supercomputer in the southern hemisphere, sits above the Mullaloo aquifer. As Dr Mathew Campbell and Dr Mattia Saccò process the eDNA in the water of the Mullaloo using Magnus, the waters of the aquifer flow through Magnus itself, cooling its processors, to be expelled back into the aquifer. A system at once symbiotic and compromised.

Mullaloo and Magnus presents a sculpture, generative sound work and a realtime eDNA simulation made through collaboration with Dr Mattia Saccò and Dr Matthew Campbell.
With support from the Subterranean and Groundwater Ecology (SuRGE) Group at Curtin University, Pawsey Supercomputing Center Visualisation Lab and CSIRO.