Fish Phone Booth
Immersive Experience, Graphic Design
2024
Roles: Visual Design Lead, Experience Designer, + Co-Producer
Responsible for shaping visual language, including graphic material, while supporting both technical and logistical aspects of production.
Fish Phone Booth is an interspecies communication prototype that uses interactive audio and sensory media in combination with scientists, data, and machine learning (AI). The experience is live in the Birch Aquarium and will be up through 2025.
Fish Phone Booth: Pacific Ocean Unseen
Responsible for shaping visual language, including graphic material, while supporting both technical and logistical aspects of production.
Fish Phone Booth is an interspecies communication prototype that uses interactive audio and sensory media in combination with scientists, data, and machine learning (AI). The experience is live in the Birch Aquarium and will be up through 2025.
Fish Phone Booth: Pacific Ocean Unseen
Fish Phone Booth Booklet
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Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and affiliated labs have been recording underwater soundscapes for decades, using High-frequency Acoustic Recording Packages (HARPs)—underwater microphones known as hydrophones—to capture everything from whale songs and dolphin clicks to passing ships and military sonar. These recordings reveal not only the lives of marine animals, but also the acoustic pollution threatening their habitats.
Inspired by this research, Smith and Twomey created a sculptural phone booth that acts as a speculative interface between human and oceanic life. Inside, participants are guided through a sound journey—listening to marine audio, layered storytelling, and ambient cues, and responding with their own vocalizations. Outside the booth, their movements are tracked and visualized as flowing trails that echo the migratory patterns of sea life.
The project poses speculative questions:
What if a fish could text you about ocean noise? What if the sea could listen back? Could a phone call connect us to an internet of animals—and what would that mean?
As part of the experience, the artists are collecting participant responses to train a custom AI model designed to explore human–animal communication. In this way, Fish Phone Booth functions as both an immersive performance and a living research platform—bridging data, voice, and multispecies interaction.
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Inspired by this research, Smith and Twomey created a sculptural phone booth that acts as a speculative interface between human and oceanic life. Inside, participants are guided through a sound journey—listening to marine audio, layered storytelling, and ambient cues, and responding with their own vocalizations. Outside the booth, their movements are tracked and visualized as flowing trails that echo the migratory patterns of sea life.
The project poses speculative questions:
What if a fish could text you about ocean noise? What if the sea could listen back? Could a phone call connect us to an internet of animals—and what would that mean?
As part of the experience, the artists are collecting participant responses to train a custom AI model designed to explore human–animal communication. In this way, Fish Phone Booth functions as both an immersive performance and a living research platform—bridging data, voice, and multispecies interaction.
Context:
Fish Phone Booth was prototyped with support from the La Jolla Playhouse’s WOW Festival and is part of EMBODIED PACIFIC, a PST ART: Art & Science Collide exhibition.
View the project at: www.embodiedpacific.com
EMBODIED PACIFIC is a partnership between UC San Diego Visual Arts and Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, featuring 30 artists working in collaboration with scientists across Southern California and the Pacific Islands. Through exhibitions, workshops, and performances at six venues, the project invites immersive engagement with oceanography, Indigenous design, and critical craft.
Fish Phone Booth is also part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, Southern California’s landmark arts initiative presented by Getty, featuring over 70 exhibitions exploring the intersections of art and science—from ancient cosmologies and Indigenous sci-fi to artificial intelligence and environmental justice.
Learn more at pst.art
Creative Team
Lead Artists:
•Ash Eliza Smith – Speculative Devices Lab, Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts
•Robert Twomey – Machine Cohabitation Lab, UC San Diego
Production & Support Team:
•Sam Bendix – Production, Graphic, and Experience Design
•Reid Brockmeier – Developer, Design Support
•Michał Stankiewicz – Dramaturgy
Supported by:
La Jolla Playhouse Without Walls (WOW) Festival
Worlds in Play
Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts
UC San Diego Visual Arts
Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Fish Phone Booth was prototyped with support from the La Jolla Playhouse’s WOW Festival and is part of EMBODIED PACIFIC, a PST ART: Art & Science Collide exhibition.
View the project at: www.embodiedpacific.com
EMBODIED PACIFIC is a partnership between UC San Diego Visual Arts and Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, featuring 30 artists working in collaboration with scientists across Southern California and the Pacific Islands. Through exhibitions, workshops, and performances at six venues, the project invites immersive engagement with oceanography, Indigenous design, and critical craft.
Fish Phone Booth is also part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, Southern California’s landmark arts initiative presented by Getty, featuring over 70 exhibitions exploring the intersections of art and science—from ancient cosmologies and Indigenous sci-fi to artificial intelligence and environmental justice.
Learn more at pst.art
Creative Team
Lead Artists:
•Ash Eliza Smith – Speculative Devices Lab, Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts
•Robert Twomey – Machine Cohabitation Lab, UC San Diego
Production & Support Team:
•Sam Bendix – Production, Graphic, and Experience Design
•Reid Brockmeier – Developer, Design Support
•Michał Stankiewicz – Dramaturgy
Supported by:
La Jolla Playhouse Without Walls (WOW) Festival
Worlds in Play
Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts
UC San Diego Visual Arts
Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography