A series of video- installations on a fish farm that were carried out as part of an art practice- based PhD in digital art in the rural environment based at the University of Sunderland. For more information see the abstract of the research, and go to: http://my.sunderland.ac.uk/web/schools/adm/research/artsdes_research/r_studes/debby_akam

The fish farm embodied a number of complex relationships between natural habitat and man-made environment that exist in other ‘technological landscapes’. Farming methods here used basic technologies, but nevertheless subjected the animals to an industrial regime governed by economic necessity. Located close to several main roads, and physically linked to a river, the farm marked the point of convergence of natural and man-made paths: farming, tourism, flight- paths and a river.

A series of art projects on the farm aimed to question our responses and attitudes to the industrial use of animals, while retaining the sense of wonder experienced by individuals when faced with the unbridgeable distance between themselves and another: described by the French critic Luce Irigaray, ‘Wonder being the moment of illumination…between the subject and the world’.

Trout Farm Projections	Fish Food	Fish Farmer	Climbing Rope	Trout Farm Paintings