Pierre Huyghe Circadian Dilemma (El Día del Ojo), 2017

Circadian Dilemma (Dia del Ojo), from the artist's series of aquarium works, houses an especially conceived aquatic landscape that recalls a Mexican water cave. Blind cave fish live among rocks and algae. Although "blind cave" fish are generally non-seeing—as an adaptation to their habitat in underwater caves without any ambient light—fish belonging to the species retain the potential for vison, and some can see. Thus one of the fish in Circadian Dilemma (Dia del Ojo) can see, the others cannot. This creates the titular "Circadian dilemma": both are subject to alternate circadian rhythms, as the blind fish no longer follow one determined by light that depends on the 24 hour rotation of the earth.

The tank is made from black switchable glass which can be either transparent or opaque. A program based on outside data related to local climatic conditions (variables such as temperature, precipitation, cloud cover, visibility, etc.) determines whether the glass panes are switched to black or to transparent, and also turns the LED light on and off, therefore affecting the atmosphere of the aquarium and live animals within. The aquarium is geo-localized, meaning once connected to WiFi, the work locates its current longitude and latitude and automatically draws on weather applications to receive local data.

Photo credit: Alex Delfanne