Title: AfterGlow | Credit: boredomresearch / Animate Projects

AfterGlow

boredomresearch and Dr Paddy Brock | Video | Silent Signal

Locked in perpetual twilight – prime mosquito blood-feeding time – AfterGlow presents a terrain progressively illuminated by glowing trails, evocative of mosquito flight paths. These spiralling forms represent packets of blood, carried by mosquitos infected with Plasmodium knowlesi, a malaria parasite recently found to jump the species barrier from monkey to human. The infection left in the wake of wandering macaques as they search the island for food reveals the intimate relationship between disease and its environment.

 

Here we see how the island’s empty dark mountains are quickly engulfed with glowing forms, as we journey through the different stages of infection, starting with delicately spiralling cells of colour that form clusters, then become turbulent when infectious. Where the infection is most dense, we see a blizzard of disease, vividly expressing the complexity of this dangerous scenario.