Thomas and Uli Westphal are German born visual artists and brothers. They both graduated from the same Art Academy in the Netherlands and are based in Berlin and Helsinki. They have always been inspired by each other’s work and lately have been collaborating more intensively. A unifying element is the fascination with microscopy and the ambition to not only be a spectator but an active agent in this environment. The Westphals use a wide range of artistic approaches combining mechanics, sculpture, kinetics, electronics and digital media, often resulting in different types of installations.
Thomas and Uli have spent countless hours together marvelling at microscopic lifeforms in water samples. While on board Godzilla they plan to sample the Baltic Sea with the help of a specially fabricated plankton net, that consists of many daisy chained chambers made from silk screen gaze of decreasing mesh size, reminiscent of a translucent jellyfish or eel trap. Lifeforms and debris that are caught in the net will thus be filtered by scale and form sediment layers on the inside of the net, which then can be sampled and observed. The color of the sediments in the different chambers could tell something about what creatures, algae, or pollutants are in the water. The net could also serve as an underwater stealth sail. They also plan to experiment with UV light to look for bioluminescence, fluorescent microplastic and stroboscopic lights to visually freeze the motion of water.
” I am living here in Vuosaari next to a natural sand beach. I wake up and go to bed with a view of the sea and the horizon and it gives me so much peace. I celebrate in warm summer nights and in winter by dipping into a hole-in-the-ice. The sea erodes, it carries along, it forces us to reflect on ourselves. The sea consumes, and it also nourishes. When it is polluted it terrifies us and reminds us of our own mortality. Since Uli and I also got inside the microscopic world of the sea, its laws and organisms, it became even closer to my heart.” – Thomas Westphal
“Even though I live in Germany, I know the Baltic Sea more from the Finnish side, where my brother Thomas lives. My most vivid memories are of walking over it when it was still freezing in winter, listening to the laser-like sounds that the ice was emitting on extremely cold nights. On this new wide open plain nothing was written yet and thoughts and ideas could run free. In recent years Thomas and I gained access to some beautiful scattered rocks and islands in front of Vuosaari by means of a small zodiac vessel. There is still so much to explore!” – Uli Westphal