Soul Fish

Every Soul Fish carries its own genome, which records whether it has fins, how wide its body is, how many lines it has and the value of every parameter; what I define is the DNA, and the fish grows itself. The hash of each edition first becomes a stream of random numbers, and the stream decides sixteen traits in order: palette, background, body size, solid or gradient colouring, main and dark colour, the number of tendrils, the density of lines, the type of scales, the vertical fin, the spine, the upper and lower fins and their sizes, and the chord set it will keep for life. The same stream also feeds the noise and the physics, so the same hash always grows the same fish.

In earlier works such as Sliderverse and Soul Sea the sound was synthesised with the Web Audio API; with Soul Fish I placed a set of real piano samples inside the work for the first time, and the moment the work starts running it decides its chord progression and melodic line. Because the music is generated live, every fish has a melody of its own, a higher melodic line woven over a lower accompaniment, and each fish is a melody automaton composing its own tune.

It works like a loom, except that what it weaves is notes rather than cloth; when the fish swims faster the whole piece quickens, and the instant a bubble bursts, a single piano note falls an octave higher.

At the DIGI-FI festival in Yilan at the end of 2023, Soul Fish became an interactive installation for the first time. A vertical touchscreen stands on the right; rest your palm on the light and a glow slowly gathers around your hand and settles into a colour, while the screen reads that a soul fragment has been extracted and a fish is being generated. On the large screen and the projection to the left, the fish that was there dissolves into points of light, and a new fish in that colour slowly grows.

Visitors stood before the wall comparing: why is the fish blue, why is mine so flat, why is yours so large. The feeling is like drawing a fortune stick at a temple; having placed a hand on the light, a person believes that this fish belongs to them.

During the Yilan festival the interactive version was covered by ELLE Taiwan, Marie Claire Taiwan, Vogue Taiwan and the Central News Agency; in 2026 it appears again in episode 267 of BLTV's Art Metaverse and in a PTS Plus feature. Links are at the foot of the page.